The things that make you different
by shyangell
Summary: Sirius is very different from anyone else Hogwarts has ever seen before. He is unique, and now we can see him through the eyes of those who knew him at Hogwarts in 1971-78. RECENTLY REVIEWED AND REFORMATTED.
1. Chapter 1

_Author: shyangell & MorningDawn_

_DISCLAIMER: All the fictional characters appearing in this fanfiction story are not mine, they're J.K. Rowling's; and they are being used with the only purpose of personal entertainment._

_This story has been FINALLY revised. THIS CHAPTER IS NEWLY BETAED._

**CHAPTER 1**

_**Sirius Black trough Remus Lupin's eyes: of midnight, vampires and frosty logs.**_

_Sometimes I sit up late with my thoughts, reluctant to fall asleep and leave my thoughts alone by themselves. (Robert Brault)_

He didn't fit in at all in the beginning. Sirius Black wasn't cut to be one more amongst commoners, at least not at first. Later, he still wasn't sure he was meant to, but there were a lot more of arguments in favour of that. But this was now and that was then, and the difference was noticeable. He was too stiff, too cold… too different.

There was not a single person living and breathing inside of Hogwarts, and some outside of it, who didn't wonder what on earth had the Sorting Hat been thinking when he put Sirius Black in Gryffindor. His parents really didn't count because they didn't wonder, they weren't that sort of people, they were directly and loudly outraged. It was not that they, and by '_they'_ he meant Sirius' schoolmates, considered it impossible that deep down he had the qualities that made a Gryffindor well... a Gryffindor. They never really got that far. It was more that he didn't look like one in the least, didn't act like one at all. He wasn't comfortable around his housemates, and they weren't comfortable with him anywhere near, _thank-you-very-much_.

But after a few months, and a few choice words with older students, Sirius slowly started to fit in. Not exactly fit in, but he was there, and like an ingrown toenail, you had to live with it. It was neither instantaneous nor miraculous, but after the initial shock wore off, people were willing to ignore a lot of things. Sirius' deeply ingrained social skills kicked in and trough a prodigious work of observation and symbiosis Sirius started to belong to the tightly wound microcosms that was Gryffindor Tower.

And Remus thought it was fair of him to call a note on his social skills, even when Sirius was not a people-person. Because that's exactly what they were. Sirius could, he could when he was only eleven, easily deduce the rules that coalesced any given community and what he needed to do to be seen any given way he wanted. It didn't mean he chose to appear nice. Most of the time he acted like couldn't care less, or so he pretended. You could guess it was an honour to be allowed to know that Sirius did have a softer side.

Some things Sirius changed altogether from his persona. Some others he couldn't, or wouldn't change. Those were fortunately few enough and came out sparingly and could mostly be easily ignored. Remus guessed he wasn't the only one that forgot he had them, sometimes.

The thing was that sometimes, Sirius forgot too. And just like right now, one of the guys would suddenly notice them and realize how glaringly obvious it all was after all. You could cast back and notice how this annoying, posh, disturbingly plain weird little habit was there all along. Right under your nose.

It invariably led to obscenely long episodes of uninterrupted hilarity and teasing for a while. Sirius of course pretended to be impervious to it, which was reason enough to make him James' preferred target for jokes far beyond the time he should have been tired of it.

Remus Lupin was an early riser. He woke up at the crack of dawn, he washed, he dressed and he hurried along like the good student he was. Every damn day. He had his wits fairly about him, didn't seem particularly reluctant to go to classes. You could have said that he was up earlier than anybody else. Anybody else but Sirius, that is.

Classes starting at nine o'clock, he would wake up at half past seven, muster the strength to turn off his alarm clock and go have a hurried freezing cold shower. He hardly enjoyed them, but the lukewarm water always seemed cold that early.

At that ungodly hour in the morning, the dormitory was always quiet. Not literally quiet you see, as Fabian Prewett snored at the top of his lungs, and Peter Pettigrew muttered incoherencies in his sleep. James, who could never wake up earlier than eight o'clock (and even then it was with supreme effort and much whining and flailing) slept buried under an incredibly tangled pile of blankets.

No matter what, Sirius would already be up and about, cheery and ready to go get the trouble the day brought in. Often enough thinking of ways of spurring mayhem to alleviate boredom. Sometimes he was even down in the common room feeding that demon-she-cat of his. Or finishing whatever homework for the day he had accidentally on purpose forgotten to do in a hurry. He mostly waited for the rest to awaken.

Of course Sirius was never a patient man in any circumstance. Once the cat was fed, the homework done to passable standards and Remus was completely dressed, Sirius had usually reached the end of his tether. Remus had lost count of how many times Sirius had walked purposefully out of the bathroom and emptied a glass full of freezing cold water on James' head, as a friendly wake-up call. By then James and Sirius were the best of friends, of course, but Remus doubted Sirius would have been deterred otherwise. James would scream like a banshee every time, and Sirius looked invariably satisfied.

And when, after seven years of seeing Sirius smirk first thing in the morning like clockwork, Remus woke up one day to find Sirius still in bed he couldn't believe his eyes. Of course he didn't, it was the wise thing to do. Otherwise he'd trick you out of your socks that one. He knew he shouldn't be all that surprised because when he'd left Sirius with his Herbology homework it was more than late, and his friend still had work for a while. And please suspend your disbelief but Sirius did hate Herbology with a passion. Apparently it as far too _dirty_ a subject for him, or something of the likes.

He peeked, as the curtains hadn't been properly closed, just to check that he was truly sleeping. He could be dead for all he knew, he told himself.

He couldn't put his finger on exactly why, but it felt incredibly stalker-ish, like he was invading Sirius' privacy. Which was bullshit because Sirius wouldn't have thought twice about doing that to him. But Sirius was always the last to go to bed, and the first one to rise. It was always like that, fact of life, so it was logical he checked.

Sirius was odd. But he was okay, still breathing.

Seeing Sirius go to sleep was freaky enough. He'd never gotten to see Sirius actually sleep before now. Sirius lounged and laid himself out in haphazard fashion on the common room armchairs, his limbs strewn in elegant and suitably dramatic angles. Sirius was all casually devastating poses and fluidity of motion. Sirius was energy and irrepressible movement, constant purpose of action. Sirius was always doing something or other, larger than life and more animated than anyone else Remus knew. He would've thought that he would be like that always. That he'd sleep with his limbs strewn all over his bed, occupying the maximum space available, with his characteristic lack of self-consciousness and provably look good while doing so.

It turns out Sirius wasn't quite like that either. He was neither casual nor looked particularly at ease in his own bed. He slept laid on his back, perfectly straight, like he'd arranged his limbs with a ruler. He was perfectly still. He looked a bit dead, or at least unconscious. Remus always had the feeling that he was looking at someone in a coffin, or even worse, one of those incredibly bad vampire movies because you could see the actor breathing, and vampires were not supposed to be alive.

Sirius once pointed out that it would be more correct to say deathbed, because in the case he was a vampire Remus would have known for sure. It had the desired effect of driving Remus off in a huff, indignant and outraged because the joke had turned out to be at his expense and he really didn't like being remembered of his lycanthropy. James of course laughed his head off instead, and proclaimed that they better stay clear of Sirius just in case the Mummy's curse was contagious.

That was a while ago, when they'd been young, or younger at any rate, and Peter had woken up at four o'clock in the morning because he needed to pee so badly, and had stumbled in the dark straight into Sirius' curtains instead of the door. They were in second year, and Peter had been the only one to see Sirius in bed until then. Peter had mimicked Sirius lying ramrod straight for weeks just to amuse James, which showed the reason he was a Gryffindor. He was at least _a little_ brave.

They didn't understand how he used to do it then, and they most definitely didn't understand it now. They did ask, of course they did but between jokes none of them mustered the courage to ask 'Actually why are you so damn weird even in your sleep, Sirius?'. Sirius' withering look could burn a hole through your skull in less time it took McGonagall to take away House points. Even so Remus thinks he remembers a lame-ass excuse to do with some creature.

Sirius tried to imitate the others in that like in everything else, to a degree. He observed them like a hawk for a while, his grey eyes focused and piercing, scrutinizing. It was quite amusing to see him try and find a posture comfortable enough for without succeeding. He'd had bags under his eyes. After while he was sleeping mummified again. Which was fine, really.

There was also a time in which they thought that Sirius would be forced to sleep like normal people do. They were disabused of that soon enough, but imagining it had been challenging.

Sirius had always been incredibly tall for his age. Some absentminded people often mistook him for a boy two or three years older easily. He was easily a head span taller than any other boy in their year, and towered over professor Flitwick.

Remus had been almost able to swim in the king-sized beds of Hogwarts. Sirius already touched the bed's foot by fourth year. In fifth year to his roommates' horror he slept still perfectly straight, and his feet dangled off the bed quite listlessly. When he started to complain about cold feet, Remus sent him to McGonagall. Not that Sirius listened at first, but he threatened to stop letting him copy his History of Magic essays, he gave in.

A very shocked Professor MacGonagall verified that Sirius was truly in need of a longer bed, and of course James input in the matter was that worry not she certainly had no need for to make it any wider. That way, one of the bigger beds available for older students in the same situation ended up in their bedroom.

Now, with his impressive six foot five inches and a half, he still slept in the same fashion he did as an eleven-year-old kid. But he looked relaxed, and almost younger.

Remus couldn't help wondering, his back aching with the proximity of the full moon, how on earth was his friend able to sleep so still without everything hurting. He guessed some things just didn't go away. And whatever education Sirius received marked him deeply and thoroughly. And when unconscious he was both the most vulnerable and the most defensive.

Sirius was an insomniac and had nightmares, not unlike himself. His churning mind and unspoken night terrors kept him up when the world was asleep. He never accused it, and seemed to be even more active come morning. He surrounded himself with activity. Remus, now wiser, was of the opinion that Sirius was afraid to be left alone with the incessant obsessive thoughts in his mind. Sirius was always obsessive, even about not obsessing.

He maintained an erratic bedtime and was annoyingly active at one a.m. when he should have been dead on his feet. He himself held his horrible family accountable for that, of course. But it was very difficult to feel sorry for Sirius; he always made to be certain you wouldn't. _They_ were so cold from what Remus could see, he was sure that you could get frostbite just for being in the same room with them.

And he was certain sleeping beside Sirius should feel like sleeping beside a particularly unwieldy and frosty log. But as he watched James complete his nightly fight with his bed's blankets, he decided Sirius would make ten thousand times a better sleeping partner for whichever lucky witch he ended up with than poor James. At least, he thought with a wry smile, you could cuddle against him without risk of being kicked, permanently maimed, or getting at the very least, a black eye.


	2. Chapter 2

_Author: shyangell & MorningDawn_

_DISCLAIMER: All the fictional characters appearing in this fanfiction story are not mine, they're J.K. Rowling's; and they are being used with the only purpose of personal entertainment._

_This story has been FINALLY revised. THIS CHAPTER IS NEWLY BETAED._

**CHAPTER 2**

_**Sirius Black trough James Potter's eyes: of arrogance and other things.**_

_Early in life I had to choose between honest arrogance and hypocritical humility. I chose the former and have seen no reason to change. (Frank Lloyd Wright)_

He stood out like a sore thumb those firsts months. Sirius Black was like every other pure-blood snob James had come across. He acted like he was so very above all of them, so withdrawn and self-aware. And they were only children at school, not in an audience in front of the Wizengamot. He was too self-possessed, too arrogant and cold-ish… too different.

The poor sod should have been put in Slytherin so everyone would have been saved the trouble. It was nothing but an inconvenience, really. Many already murmured that the old Hat deserved a well earned retirement. A _Black_. In _Gryffindor_. No Way!

When James met Sirius for the first time he thought he was a stiff git. Well, that was after they met on the train and he'd sent a few sharp barbs to that greasy kid, what's-his-name-Snape. Those were good, it was very good, only he was a Black and he was meant to be in Slytherin. He'd said so himself.

Even the teachers eyed him carefully, mistrust apparent in their eyes, for a few weeks. They didn't know what to make of him. Probably it was that they knew how to deal with insolent Slytherins and with Gryffindor troublemakers… but he didn't appear to be neither.

What he was certain of, was that Black didn't walk in what could possibly be a natural position. And blast it, he didn't even bend to tie his shoelaces. He was certain that, if the spell for doing so wasn't far more complicated that doing it yourself, he would have been using it. He could swear he saw him stare straight ahead in a few classes and take notes like an automaton.

For normal guys like him, watching Black get dressed could make you get a complex. Ok, so he could get his shirt and his robes on in five minutes and nary a wrinkle. No problem. What he really would have killed him for was the damn tie. He'd had to ask help from Remus with his tie the first day of school. And then there was Black, who didn't even use a mirror.

James used to complain that Black always looked down his nose on people. As if they were inferior somehow. He glanced at you through half lidded eyebrows. He later admitted, snickering at his younger self that Sirius was ever so tall that he wouldn't be looking directly at you unless he bent down in half. James had been particularly scrawny back then. Sirius was forced by nature to look down to him. Back then in first year, he hadn't cared. It had been an excuse to dislike him.

Nobody ever heard him call anyone 'mudblood' ever, or make any deprecating comment to his housemates. At least without provocation. But he was still rigid and overly formal. And James, who had never learnt that speaking with your mouth full was something you weren't supposed to do, was in the opinion that it was unacceptable.

James made him into his first prank victim to try and "get him to pull that broom handle out of his ass". He failed miserably, of course. Every single time he tried to get at Sirius, he would get out of the hook. James was outraged because Black seemed to smell him coming. And he invariably ended up hitting one girl or another instead of his intended target. It was not helping him win over Lily Evans, who gave him the cold shoulder since meeting on the train the first time. Once or twice he hit _her_, and regretted it dearly because those scratches took their time in fading away.

That kept going in the same fashion until Sirius Black got fed up with James' taunting and pranks and punched him. He honest-to-god punched him. Right then and in a flash of realization, and damn that flash hurt, James discovered Sirius had a mighty right hook. Then he would learn that it was the first time Sirius lost it so much he forgot he had a wand. It was the first time ever he hit someone with something other than a hex.

Of course they became friends. James had a penchant for adopting dangerous friends, talk about Hagrid and his mental pets. Many would think James was mad because he was friends with a werewolf. James knew better. He was insane because his best friend had anger-management issues and liked to find out what made people tick. But Sirius as a friend was worth his weight in gold.

Sirius could sell sand in the middle of the desert. He used grand words, and implied most people were idiots. He had a skewed moral compass and a willingness to break the rules for you. He could spin a lie like he did it every day and people did exactly what he wanted. Not because everybody found him nice, but because he knew the exact way in which to say things so you would either see things his way or would react doing exactly what he was hoping. Annoyance worked as well as persuasion.

It was one of the reasons why they went from mild tolerance to actually getting on rather famously. James had really needed a partner in crime who actually could get him out of trouble, instead of getting him into it, from time to time. Life in Hogwarts was suddenly less boring.

James of course stopped believing Sirius' every word, and so did McGonagall shortly enough. She was a smart witch for all that she was a teacher, and eyed him cautiously when he tried to feed her one of his incredible stories. James rather thinks it became some kind of sport experimenting on how many harebrained stories he could get away with.

James learnt to take anything Sirius said with a pinch of salt. Mostly, because it was difficult to tell when Sirius was yanking your chain from when he was... well, deadly serious. To be quite honest he had to admit that he could pull even the Great James Potter's leg. He was not a liar, but you had to reach around all his bullshit to get to the point in any conversation that went remotely close to personal. It didn't bother James that much, he wasn't a bloody _girl_.

Once Remus complained that he'd never understand how he could walk all day like _that_ without pulling something. His tone was a bit offensive but it was Remus' time of the month and was consequently a bit cranky, and Sirius was more understanding. Sirius was always understanding of Remus. He also was in the bad habit of giving straight answers when you least expected them.

Apparently he'd been a child, really small, and his mother had made him walk up and down the corridor, up and down the stairs balancing books on his head. Was that even a proper use for books? Apparently if he dropped them he was punished. Sirius did never say how. Whatever, he doesn't think Sirius was lying.

He saw what Sirius meant one day Sirius heard Matthias Mulciber, a Slytherin of the same year, criticize him. It was nothing out of the ordinary, but hearing the in the same sentence 'family', 'shame' and 'Black' was the fastest road to Sirius' bad side. Not that he had a good one for any Slytherin.

And there was only one thing worse you can around Sirius than whisper behind his back, and that was whisper behind his back and get caught.

The barb was really reminiscent of James' early taunting of Sirius, in their early days. About how Sirius walked with something up his ass and how he believed himself to be better than everyone else, but adding of course that it was intolerable because he was only a blood-traitor.

Mulciber didn't know what hit him. And James didn't either before Mucliber was paralyzed ramrod straight by a hex that looked damn uncomfortable, and had a sneering Sirius right in his face saying that maybe that helped make Sirius not look like a monkey, and that he was clearly growing up to be an horribly unappealing hunchback.

James rather thought Sirius was exaggerating, as amusing as the image is, but it was an opinion he wasn't sharing anytime soon. He was pretty sure Mulciber never quite forgot the humiliation, much less forgave his tempestuous friend for it. In any case he knew that it had taken Madam Pomfrey the whole day to get him out of his magical bindings.

James couldn't deny that Muldiber was partly right. _Then_, that is. Now, in seventh year, time had passed and Sirius still walked as straight as a wire. But now it had evolved to a lazy languorous gait that allowed his friends to keep up with his long legs and was quite ironically… cat-like. It was amusing to imagine the indignant yelp Sirius' animagus form would make if he ever heard that thought. Sirius was capable of a slouch and it was a pose he assumed when he wanted to convey he was damn tired of you. But he never carried it around like so many other trendy teenagers. When angry though, he would turn back to his to a brisk and aggressive strides able to make most people shrink. It was extremely difficult to keep up with him then, unless you broke into a run.

But by then the students, the teacher, Hagrid and even possibly the ghosts had gotten used to Sirius. Sirius was Sirius, and there was nothing to feel surprised about anymore, it was no different from when a stair changed destinations when you were right in the middle. Annoying but you were used to it, this was Hogwarts after all. He was incongruous and clashed with the establishment of every class group he came in contact with. He was surprising and irreverent, and made a show of not caring.

In Hogwarts he was in his element though, he was admired, if not extremely popular and damn good at almost everything he tried. But he didn't so much fit anywhere on a regular basis as make everyone else shift to accommodate him. A square peg and a round hole came to mind.

Of course the one thing Sirius never quite managed to get rid of it was his high-class Londoner accent. His posh British accent spoke of money and private tutors. Through he was able of imitating James' figures of speech and vocabulary (which plainly said means colloquial terms, swearwords and insults); he never could make them sound equally irreverent. They _sounded_ rebellious because of the sharp contrast between words and Sirius' prefect Queen English. James could afford to cram up seven swear-words in the same sentence and appear casual about it. It didn't sound careless when it was Sirius using them. He did always seem more biting, more offensive.

This was, in all honesty, the one thing in Sirius' Sirius-ness that even bothered James at all. Often, he would use strange words, archaic and complicated. Sirius could come up with words you didn't even know existed. They were slips of the tongue, and he very much didn't mean to say them. Which would be fine if he weren't so very mortified by it. He sounded like a toff, which he was. But it honestly wasn't necessary to outright insult anyone (Peter mostly) that didn't understand instantly his aristocratic slang. Bless Morgana for having Remus around, he never seemed to think Sirius spoke an alien language. Otherwise Sirius would have made more serious efforts in not being Sirius-like, and that would have been even more horrible.

And the worst... the worst was that Sirius had the gall to look ashamed of being so damn flowery when speaking. Hah! But it wouldn't keep him from Shakespearian insults and his tooth and nail.

"How can you be such an idiot, James?" and then there is that. "How very interesting. Lily Evans cut her hair an inch shorter. Fascinating, really."

Of course, roughly the totality of humanity was a bloody idiot to Sirius on a bad day. It was slightly better on a good day. But it was the _sarcasm,_ and the condescension and urgh... James very much would have liked to be an idiot in peace for a while. At least as long as Lily was in the room, thank you.


	3. Chapter 3

_Author: shyangell & MorningDawn_

_DISCLAIMER: All the fictional characters appearing in this fanfiction story are not mine, they're J.K. Rowling's; and they are being used with the only purpose of personal entertainment._

_This story has been FINALLY revised. THIS CHAPTER IS NEWLY BETAED._

**CHAPTER 3**

_**Sirius Black trough Peter Pettigrew's eyes: of annoyance on the menu**_

_Manners are a sensitive awareness of the feelings of others. If you have that awareness, you have good manners, no matter which fork you use. (Emily Post)_

Sirius had a more awkward beginning at Hogwarts than Peter did, which was a bit surprising to anyone that would come to know them in more recent years. Sirius was popular, athletic and handsome, with his brilliant smile and charm. Peter was small, plump and generally overlooked in favour of his friend. Of course that was the same reason why Peter had gotten by better that Sirius at first. People glossed over Peter as unimportant and it was fine, bullies found him uninteresting too. Sirius attracted attention whether he willed it or not. And then he had been, well... too different.

He still wasn't what you would call normal, but he was their Gryffindor brand of weird. He was mad, but he was brilliant and he liked them, he liked Peter. And it was enough because Peter didn't want the attention he was quite content leaving that to him. Sirius' and James' shadow was a comfortable place to be, it afforded companionship, protection and the admiration of others by extension.

A few snipes at his expense were little to pay for Peter. And if he ever felt a twinge of sympathy for those that drew the short straw around Sirius, he never showed.

Peter was the kind of friend that tolerated almost everything. There was scantly anything he was bothered by, he faithfully tagged along and he laughed at his boisterous friends when they were particularly stupid, which was often.

But what his mad barking laughter couldn't achieve, his stunts and general dramatics couldn't do, could be achieved in one sitting over breakfast. Sirius just wouldn't eat as normal people did. Peter thought always of it as downright weird and annoying. He managed to overlook it most times.

But that morning Peter had awakened feeling ill in the stomach. He still felt ill. And this didn't improve his mood any. Eating was one of the greatest pleasures Peter Pettigrew found in life. He wouldn't have had such a tendency to put on weight if he didn't.

And as his misbehaving stomach tortured him early on the morning, acting like a wrung-out rag, he found himself observing Sirius as he ate across him.

Sirius Black eating never failed to give the impression that he was missing forks, or spoons or whatever they were; preferably in solid silver.

Sirius didn't bent down his head even to collaborate a little in the arduous task that the hands had in bringing food up to his mouth. It was more likely his head was whipping around at the same time, and somehow, amidst all that movement and general dramatics, food still found his way into his system. He somehow was able to coax the pieces of food to behave, and food on his fork _never_ failed to stay there. Now, it did sound stupid, but Peter could attest that pudding never failed to return to the plate if you took your eyes off for a second, more so if you ignored it for as long as Sirius normally did.

One would have thought that with his animagus form being a _dog_ he would have had a much messier way of feeding. Because it's what Sirius did, he never seemed to care what he was eating as long as he ate, never showed enthusiasm for one plate over another, like Brussels sprouts weren't truly disgusting.

This rather well behaved dog cut everything so small you sometimes had the feeling that his food would disappear, and never ever put a whole piece of anything in his mouth. And the size of Hogwarts meatballs was leaning towards the dwarf side of the spectrum.

Sirius ate at an incredible speed considering the nuance of all this. Peter was rather sure had he felt inclined to do that, it would've taken him all morning to finish his breakfast. And somehow he managed to ingest a considerable amount of food too. Though only god knows where he put all that because he was as lithe and fit, and generally considered handsome.

Which was not fair. Life was not fair. Why, none of his friends seemed to be aware of how much fat they were ingesting. Peter did, and still ate because he wasn't the kind to start a diet. You couldn't start a diet at Hogwarts. But for whatever reasons, the only people who didn't know sweets were supposed to make you fat were _thin_. _Urgh_. Sometimes you did well to ignore your subconscious.

He caught sight of James spluttering food all over and saying: "Whud ye sad?" That was not something you would catch Sirius doing.

You never caught Sirius showing you the contents of his mouth. That was paradoxical too because he was probably the one who talked and laughed the most at meals. Sirius never shut up unless on a funk. The others being too worried with stuffing their faces as they were, they normally left him to provide the live entertainment. Well, the others minus Remus, who was neither the kind for stuffing anything nor was one to normally pay much heed to Sirius' ramblings. He was usually too occupied with his newspaper. That is until Sirius would steal it away proclaiming that he needed the crosswords to avoid falling asleep in Ancient Runes. Yes they were that predictable.

Peter could ignore all that. He normally did. Still, he couldn't help but roll his eyes when his friend wrinkled his nose in disgust and said; "Oi, James that's disgusting!" and then visibly shuddered.

He would substitute James for Peter indifferently depending on the day. He said they both ate like pigs, and apparently had something against piling marmalade of different kinds into the same toast. James would usually return a rude gesture and be about his business (mainly ogling at Lily); Peter would just ignore him and be about his business too (mainly, more toast).

Peter forgot about it all quite quickly because Padfoot was always so casual, funny and downright malicious in prank-pulling and day-to-day conversation… holding a grudge was not worth it, really.

But seeing him drink tea, no milk, no sugar… (when they went to the Potter's mostly or like now at Hogwarts breakfast) …was a nerve scratching affair. That little finger lifted above the others and well separated from the teacup was so annoying you wanted to have it rot off, you really had that feeling you would feel far better after hexing it away.

Peter sighed. At least he wasn't drinking coffee. James and Remus had ganged on him to get him to give up on it approximately two days after he started taking some. And thank God for that. Sirius was overactive and devious enough without drinking that coffee he liked all black and bitter. Tea at least had a slightly calming effect. Sometimes.

Peter felt clumsy compared to Sirius, he knew he shouldn't, but he did. He couldn't help it. Sirius tried with all his might to erase those ticks which survived from his so dreaded upbringing. Sirius had energy, charisma and couldn't care less what people thought of him, which means he spoke to him. But with Sirius smirking across the table from him and being oh-so-clever he would sometimes feel like he really did have the nerve to jump across and strangle him. Then the tea would spill all over the place and the croissants would get soggy. It wasn't worth it.

And maybe that wouldn't do. After all, he knew Sirius had a hidden stash of healing potions somewhere, they were for Remus and pranking accidents and the full moons. He hoped there would be something for his stomach amongst them. There had to be something good about Madame Pomfrey refusing to treat them unless they came with their heads on their hands (she said they were too much trouble), he mused.

As he stabbed his eggs forcefully he counted the minutes it would take the others to go back up again so he could try and wiggle the precious flask out of Sirius' metaphorical hands. He really needed it; he'd feel less irritable after. Sirius would forgive him when he found out, after a week or two. Perhaps he wouldn't notice. He Snorted. Yes, sure and Professor Binns had a scintillating conversation. He was doomed, but at least he'd be in good condition to take the abuse.


	4. Chapter 4

_Author: shyangell & MorningDawn_

_DISCLAIMER: All the fictional characters appearing in this fanfiction story are not mine, they're J.K. Rowling's; and they are being used with the only purpose of personal entertainment._

_This story has been FINALLY revised. THIS CHAPTER IS NEWLY BETAED._

**CHAPTER 4**

_**Sirius Black trough Lily Evan's eyes: a nightmare of a good student.**_

_Intelligence is the ability to avoid doing work, yet getting the work done. ( Linus Torvalds_)

Sirius Black had had the inherent unchanging and demonic capacity to grate on Lily's nerves with unfailing efficiency. His cocky smirk and easy-going attitude made her alarms come off like a car alarm even when she wasn't seeing it. For a girl who prided herself of existing by the rulebook there was nothing worse than Sirius Black. Scratch that, actually there was something worse because James Potter existed, but that was a whole other can of worms.

Rules existed for a reason. Usually a good reason too. He had an utter disrespect for any kind of rules, written unwritten and everything in between. He liked to tiptoe over the line, prance around playing with fire. He acted like he was superior because he did. And it was definitely not impressive that in juggling metaphorical blowtorches he never got burnt. And other people would do well to remember that and stop stroking that monstrously narcissistic ego.

He took pride in it, like a badge of honour. Every time they did something, because she knew they did a lot of things they weren't meant to; he would smirk her way and tell her she looked perky. He said that to _her_. And she saw it on his face and his stance that he knew that another feat was added to the Marauders' legend and she didn't know what it was. She hated it.

The worst thing was, all this fooling around didn't seem to affect his academic performance unduly. She'd been relatively fine with all their primaddona act if they'd been miserably failing their grades. There was a bit of an idea of universal balance in the idea. If you screwed with people's lives, life screwed you right back. It would have made sense that after so many escapades in the middle of the night, lame discussions about quidditch and taking time to make other people's life hell, we'll that they didn't have time for much else.

Sirius Black earned himself uncountable detentions. More than any other person she knew (she was not counting Potter!). He did never show remorse over whatever he'd done, and didn't that say something about a person's morals? Instead he moaned detentions were boring. And still he was a top grade student. He didn't listen in class. He passed notes or talked with Potter instead. He never took notes either. Instead he stared straight ahead, eyes glazed daydreaming, if he was ever capable of something so innocent. Sometimes he'd been staring through the classroom's windows a whole hour.

But when asked a question in class, he would still know the right answer. And wasn't that just plain detestable? He could and would repeat point by point whatever McGonagall had been explaining. Or whatever she had still to explain. It had happened once, and McGonagall had not been amused.

"Mr. Black. If you are so bored and knowledgeable on the matter at hand, would you please be so kind as to come up and explain it yourself?" And he had; point per point with flourish demonstration at the end.

Lily was convinced Remus told him the answers half the time. It was nigh-impossible to be listening at the same time you were constructing paper aircrafts ("It's a phoenix!") with parchment scraps. She also had concluded a long time ago that they must be systematically copying their homework. How could kind studious Remus, be friends with Potter and Black was a fathomless mystery.

Lily had been, by her own standards, in light of their respective behaviour and attitude, the better man (or woman). She put a lot of work into her studies, behaved as she should and strived to be ever better. Teachers showed appreciation and was regarded, even if it amused her, as a goody-two-shoes. Sirius Black never did anything that was not lounge around in dramatic expression of his endless boredom. It should have showed, but it didn't. Maybe if he'd shown one ounce of ambition or purpose they should've been scared of him.

But as it is you couldn't. The greatest ambition he had was to manage to break into the Three broomsticks after hours. By the time seventh year rolled around, lots of water had passed under the bridge. Their relationship, while it could not be defined in terms of friendship, it could be defined by mutual amused tolerance. Sirius existed with the sole purpose of bringing a bit of drama and histrionics into their life, to have them laugh at him, at others and at each other with a free consciousness. And wasn't that what they all needed?

Maybe if pressed, she'd say he'd had become a sort of annoying older brother. Coming from Lily, you had to remember that her sister was Petunia.

Seated in their corner of the common room, he was completing his homework sitting sideways on a fluffy armchair, busy with the final touches on an essay that was due the next five minutes. She of course was just waiting for James in typical fashion. She mused how doing everything last minute could possibly work for Sirius.

When he chose Aritmancy back in third year she'd wanted to laugh out loud. I mean surely, the most complex of all magical disciplines and Sirius Black could not work well. Aritmancy was full of rules, of rigid procedures and other such complexities. There was no room to manoeuvre the magic hat of intuition. She'd thought. _Good, that'll teach him_. Only that God must've been keen on punishing her for her pride. Sirius wasn't only good at Aritmancy, he was a natural. He swam though numbers and figures with liquid ease and saw doors when she only saw windows. The ease of the flow with which he manipulated wards and calculated quantities of unknown spells showed Sirius was practically genius. And Lily was not so good at it.

Lily had learned that envy was green. She'd never had reason to be envious of anyone before.

Still she'd promised herself she would not sell herself out and ask him to pair up with her, because she wasn't there for the marks. She was there to learn. Of course he would've never have left Remus to fend on his own; and Lupin reaped the benefits of their association. She remembers briefly thinking that maybe Remus was not as mad as she thought after all.

Considering that the day before the OWLs Potter and Black went flying on Hogwarts' grounds and took a dip in the lake to make the acquaintance of the Giant Squid, she'd again thought that they wouldn't do all that well at them. As it was their due, because they'd caused such a racket that Frank, studying for the NEWTs and close to being a wreck had almost had an apoplexy. And Lily was not known for it, but she was actually a bit of a busybody when no-one was looking. When next September the returned to school she had asked Remus about it.

Her sort-of-friend's resigned smile should have told her she was not going to find his answer fair. And she didn't. She was in a bad mood for a whole week.

Sirius didn't fail a single one of his OWLs. As far as she knew he passed with remarkable marks and had his pick for the future NEWTs. He got seven Outstanding marks, two Exceeds Expectations and an Acceptable. He was one of the few who had an outstanding mark on all his optional subjects. The fact that he'd had the common sense to not take Divination was surprising enough.

Lily was convinced that at this point the only reason he hadn't been expelled was because of his good marks. This only had given place to some long days of self-righteous annoyance. Damn, being smarter that average didn't make him above the rest. It didn't help that in that week Sirius and James painted the Slytherin table red.

James told her, years later, that to him who was his friend, and as surprising as Sirius was on a regular basis, his OWL marks hadn't been exactly surprising. Perhaps he'd been trying not to give a reason for his parents to kick him out. Once she knew him moderately well, she thought: _maybe_.

Sirius was a natural at DADA because his family was heavily into the Dark Arts, and leaned towards Voldemort-friendly attitudes. He knew that world and the way of thinking of Dark Wizards in his sleep. Knowledge, intimate knowledge of the subject, made perfection. Sirius got an Outstanding, allegedly because of a beautifully done Revulsion Jinx. Transfiguration was his favourite subject, as strange as that sounded. To Lily, Transfiguration was a discipline that tried to hand out guidelines to a series of basically intuitive processes at which you either were good at or you weren't. Countless to say she was rather mediocre at it, that's why she'd given it so much thought. Sirius managed to get an Outstanding for successfully vanishing both the octopus (invertebrate) and the parrot (vertebrate) in the practical. Lily's parrot left his beak behind.

It was a wonder he passed History of Magic (James failed it), because he consistently either slept through Professor Binn's classes or spent them completing the Prophet's Crossword Puzzle. She rationalized that Sirius was a Pureblood and he passed simply because he was more familiar with everything. He didn't study though, and she did; which is why _she _had an Outstanding. It made her feel very satisfied.

He managed an Exceeds Expectations in Astronomy. Really, not surprising even if he apparently lost his telescope back in second year, because it seemed to be his parents' obsession, with all the names. Considering his whole family was so absolutely obsessed with astronomy, as to name his children after constellations, it was small wonder. Really, she wasn't jealous, what was it good for after all.

Sirius hated Herbology. He said it was mind-numbingly boring and it stank. Sirius was absolutely irrational about his personal hygiene, and he spent half his days trying to wriggle out of touching anything in the greenhouses. Normally, students came out of greenhouse three smelling of compost and with dirt in unspeakable places. Sirius hated getting dirt under his aristocratic nails. He got an E, just for being magnanimous enough to deign himself to take the exam. It was more likely that it was because they had to take no practical.

Sirius of course, just like her, had no problem at all getting an O in Charms. He'd been doing supervised underage magic since he was five. Most of those charms they were being taught every day where as natural to him as breathing, routine. She actually wondered what exactly he would do if he lost his wand.

Sirius, who spoke French and another four languages, was a natural at them. His parents had been adamant of the need to know English plus French, Spanish, German and Latin. Most prized books and documents were still written in any combination of the above. Magical Runes, with the routine translations and the theory on the field of runes applied to practical spells meshed well with his more adventurous personality. Of course he showed them all up getting another O. Of course he got an O in Aritmancy. And Magical Creatures, which he took more as a amusement (and because the other option was Divination and that way lay crystal balls) had allowed him to get another easy O. Personally, Lily thought he'd been better served if he'd taken Muggle Studies.

He wasn't as gifted as herself or Snape in Potions, and that would ever be her point in pride. But he was fairly good, and while not inventively creative he was very efficient and got consistent results. His Outstanding mark, was a bit surprising, but it all depended upon where you set the mark. Privately she was glad Sirius was fairly good at Potions because she knew he had helped Remus a lot with it. Poor Remus hated potions, and if she remembered correctly barely got the A.

In fact, he was proficient enough at potions that Slughorn invited him into the Slug Club. That was something else that had been _very_ annoying. Slughorn moaned and lamented about what a pity it was That Sirius was not in Slytherin like the rest of his family. Slughorn spoke like a collector. Collectors love rarities, and Sirius the Gryffindor was one. She could tell Sirius didn't like it. He always tried to wriggle out of the invitations. She had the vague impression that having to socialize wasn't his cup of tea, even if he could do it flawlessly. It was possible he got himself into detention to have a good excuse for missing the Club's parties.

He did not like people; he considered that they were vacuous and mostly stupid. Sirius enjoyed confounding people and flooding them with so many words people agreed with him just to hear him shut up. Well she discovered that before then, of course. That last Christmas, Sirius and Lily had a few words about James, of course. Lily was very much starting to like James, but she wouldn't admit it. And Sirius had her feeling all guilty after that, when James asked her out for the umpteenth time that same day she said yes.

When in seventh year she started dating James, it came with a bonus. She found herself readily adopted by the Marauder's gang. She started to know the boys better. Sometimes she even studied with them. It was pleasant to discover that Sirius could actually have a pleasant conversation.

Giving Sirius the Evil Eye for a few months had the desired effect of prompting him to study. Later, they even convinced him to do a bit of studying in common. And no, she wasn't that insistent just so she could get him to help her with her Aritmancy homework.

Sirius proved to be a box of surprises. A thick distorting mist separated the cheery, arrogant, silly Padfoot from a much more serious, mature and self-confident Sirius. Sirius was one of those people who seen up close won a whole new human dimension; and instead of showing their weaknesses it allowed you to see their true strengths.

She could afford to look down on his antics before, but this new Sirius, as she discovered, shouldn't be undervalued. It could cost you so much in the likes of dignity. Suddenly he didn't seem such an incoherent persona. In fact he did make quite much more sense.

Sirius was quite methodical, in what suited him. True that he wasn't methodical about his studying schedule (she found out he often studied in the wee hours of the morning because he suffered insomnia), but James was frankly worse.

But the capacity for ordering thoughts and important things was patent as soon as you had an insight on his thought processes. She had the surprise of her life when he took his stack of notes of Ancient Runes, and found them all marked and alphabetically classified by themes.

Remus (who was the closest to a Sirius-expert you could get anywhere) had to patiently explain to her that Sirius was a dangerously and inconstantly obsessive person. Once the mood took him he could work on something tirelessly until he got bored. If he got in his head something was in irreparable disorder, he wouldn't stop till it was up to his standards. The only problem was that he got easily bored. And that made him terribly inconstant; the things that arrived into his possession after this Prussian re-arrangement would accumulate until he had another fit. This was the same obsession with personal hygiene that drove him to shower at least twice a day and have his nails manicured systematically. But periodical crisis regarding his belongings, were ten times worse and a hundred times less frequent.

Ant the _handwriting_ he had. Well she'd never seen handwriting like that in her life. Her look must've been truly comical, because that was how she envisioned that Professor Dumbledore writing, not Sirius!

Letters and words flew perfectly smooth through the surface of the creamy parchment, characters neither too big nor too small. The elongated letters chased each other in perfect harmony, creating lines and lines of elegant straight calligraphy. Inkblots and ink smudges didn't exist; he seemed to possess a much quill that behaved far better than hers. Even writing on a rush he didn't mess it up. To her, who learnt to write with muggle pens, quills were the devil's right hand. And the only thing he'd said was; "Come on Red, if you'd filled as many parchment rolls on calligraphy as I have, you would be great at it too!"

Fact is, she did only see that type of handwriting once again. Regulus Black earned himself a detention for telling Professor Flitwick, very precisely, where could he put his swish-and-flick. She was the head Girl, and he had to watch him copy lines. But somehow, while that affected type of handwriting didn't seem to fit Sirius, it did fit his aloof brother rather well. Lily wondered sometimes which kind of teacher they had had.

As she waited she clutched in her hand her essay on Charms. That last week their final charms project has been issued, and they'd had to work together to solve Flitwick's Last-Year challenge. It had been that, a challenge. Theirs was about insubstantial wards and sealing spells. They've been told by Mary, rumours were nobody had ever opened all four locked boxes one inside of the other.

It had looked they had just drawn the short straw.

So far they'd managed three. She and Remus had charmed opened the first one, it had been tedious but you could methodically work your way through it. James had tricked opened the second, she still doesn't know if by sheer luck or brilliance. Either way she's quite proud of him, her James. They managed the third in a group effort: Siriu's skills in Aritmancy uncovered the trick in that one, and Remus finished the charms work. Apparently the trick was that the ward was not directly linked to the box but it had insubstantially floated around it. They'd spent an entire month working on the last one.

Sirius had been feeling a bit vexed, if all the frowning and finger-steeping was anything to go by. And as he was, in James' own words, a stubborn oaf; he just hadn't been willing to give up. He'd been glaring to the tiny box as if it had committed an unspeakable crime. Last evening, James had been upside-down in a Library chair, out of sight from Madam Pince, his head hanging over the edge while his legs rested on a bookcase. Remus and Lily had been despondently pouring through yet another Encyclopaedia of Magical Wards, and Sirius had been frowning and staring out the window into the heavy rain.

And that had been it until he'd suddenly stood, forcefully crossing the library's aisle to the shelves in front of them. He'd scanned the bookshelves with a glare so fierce that a stranger would most likely have thought him furious. Sirius retreated into his own world when he was thinking hard about something, sometimes verbalizing mental connections as they were being made. "Removal" He'd whispered "Magical markings, magical… no. Perhaps, indelible… that might help... No… magical codex…"

Both he and James had always been able to make great intuitive leaps, crossing all boundaries of logic. Lily, who just like Remus thought his way methodically through nearly everything, was slightly awed by the process and couldn't hope to imitate it. The sheer, focused concentration that Sirius was capable of at times like this was both fascinating and intimidating. And at that moment he'd been going through the shelves with what looked like carelessness but was actually meticulous attention to detail.

"Oh, damn it! Let's hope this works!" He'd exclaimed after a while. And he briskly he'd turned back to the table while placing the tip of his wand, long and slender, to the box's lock. After a while and in complete silence the box had clicked open. His smile had been smug in satisfaction.

She'd never ceased to be impressed by Sirius's seemingly instinctive ability to manipulate spells and charms to suit his own devices. She just was less jealous now than some years back. You had to learn to appreciate what you _did_ have. James could do that too. Lily had wondered since probably middle of their seventh year if this apparently inborn grace was what the old families mean when they talked about pureblood superiority; if this is why they refused to allow the _Decree For Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery _to be enforced in their homes, if this is why they created houses that were more like fortresses with magic seeping out of every crack and fissure. God knows that although James' family was fairly normal they had more wards guarding the property limits than any muggle bank.

Sirius grew up in a place like that, like Hogwarts, with magic humming around him every moment of his life: disillusionment charms, protection spells, anti-muggle spells… All of these were basic components of his environment, a state of affairs that had continued all through Hogwarts and would continue with the heavily charmed and warded flat in London he'd recently bought with his uncle's inheritance.

It might not be blood that made the crucial difference, she thought, and put the idea away for a research paper in the future.


	5. Chapter 5

_Author: shyangell & MorningDawn_

_DISCLAIMER: All the fictional characters appearing in this fanfiction story are not mine, they're J.K. Rowling's; and they are being used with the only purpose of personal entertainment._

_This story has been FINALLY revised. THIS CHAPTER IS NEWLY BETAED._

**CHAPTER 5**

_**Sirius Black trough Minerva MacGonagall's eyes: Of Rebellious Troublemaking and the impending sign of the Apocalypse.**_

_I've always felt that a person's intelligence is directly reflected by the number of conflicting points of view he can entertain simultaneously on the same topic. (__Abigail Adams_)

The first time he caught a glimpse of the child, Minerva MacGonagall had the impression of a boy far too old for his years. He walked as if the weight of the world was in his shoulders.

He eyed him with contempt, but not for the reason that would in years to come bring him through her office every other week. He was quiet, but had a look to him of permanent alert. It's always the quiet ones, the ones you must mistrust. The quietness morphed soon enough into a mischievous restlessness.

She had seen many students, but there were always some of them who you couldn't quite pinpoint, and were invariably able to surprise you. Sirius Black was one of them.

There were many sorts of intelligence, some more intuitive, others more conscious. His was more of the intuitive kind, of that kind which allows a student to do the concept association so quick they don't know how they did it in the first place. And he had a good memory. It was not unusual to catch him gazing through the windows. There was no point in attracting his attention to that and questioning him though, because he would recite what she had just said. But it wouldn't have been amiss if he'd at least pretended to pay attention.

It was a pity that all that rough potential wasn't concentrated in purely academic matters. He and his little group of friends were the most undisciplined students she had ever seen. They were in detention day in day out. And she had the feeling that they were not caught every time day broke the rules, not even by far.

They managed to break the detention record, dating back to 1876 while cursing third year. Thus far they had managed to triplicate it. These had been seven years of her life she had had the impression of passing every waking hour watching over detentions. At one point she started giving them to Filch systematically, so she would be able to go over homework. Maybe if they tired more physically their trouble would die down, she'd thought.

Their maraudering made them famous among Hogwarts' staff. First there were mad infantile pranks and they got caught doing things, annoying, but not all that unheard of. As time passed by they became a far more annoying problem because they usually left no trace. Sometimes, she had to admit, she had punished them without solid proof. She knew it was them, but…

They all had wonderful ways of appearing innocent. Potter managed to look genuinely innocent. Lupin always managed to look disconcerted, as if he hadn't known what they were talking about. Pettigrew gave a very convinced show of someone who has been hit in the head. Black…

Sirius Black managed something she thought impossible. He managed to look absolutely blank. You could read no emotion in his features. It was a diplomatic face, polite but cold.

She sometimes had the temptation of attributing it to a sense of guilt. But then she had to admonish herself, because she had observed that same face in class. It appeared _every_ time you asked him something, however innocent. And in that mode mind-frame he could make the most incredible story sound reasonable. Professor MacGonagall had no way of knowing when he was lying.

His mischievous nature clashed with his educated mannerisms. He had a polite and formal speech. He was a fairly good student, and he undoubtedly contributed to a much livelier life inside the school lands. He was trouble too, but she was secretly proud of him, of all of them.

She had been the recipient of too many diatribes from Slughorn about the unfortunate occurrence of the boy not being a Slytherin student.

"A real pity, such a gifted boy…"

Truth is she had no doubt he would have loved to have him. He was trouble of another completely different sort. Sirius Black was not someone who you had to reprimand about slow progress, but rather about not handing homework you knew he ignored because he found it inescapably boring. You didn't reprimand him either for not dressing in a presentable fashion… rather for helping others look rather untidy and ridiculous, aided by al kinds of gooey messy _stuff_.

No, his dressing attire was not something she had problems with. In fact in the sweltering heat of June, sitting through a class where even she felt crushed by the abhorrent temperatures; she had wondered more then once how could he possibly not suffocate. He was sitting there, amongst his sweating companions, looking perfectly composed. His shirt sleeves were always down to his wrists, shirt collar and tie at their place, while the rest had already yielded and rolled up their sleeves and untied their collars, ties long forgotten.

And the four of them... now, if she looked backwards, many of the memories that included the famous quartet even amused her.

The thing is those four could twist her round their little finger, and their pranks were funny. They weren't nasty boys at all, they were just… They were full of life, loyalty and fun… She sometimes wondered if she could transfer them to Hufflepuff, get them out of her hair. She silently sighed always at that, nope that wouldn't do. They're the best chance they had of winning the house cup, and they had to give the Sorting Hat a little credit. _Daring nerve and chivalry!_ They certainly had the nerve in bucket loads. And chivalry... well, she was certain they had some, somewhere.

But it was always the same, none would admit who the real troublemaker was at any given time and accept the punishment as whole, a collective or some sort of brotherhood. The _Marauders_, they called themselves. Her fault she recognized, possibly. She was the first one to call them that.

The problem is she found their pranks funny. And who wouldn't laugh when the Slytherin students turned up with orange hair, or the portraits were forced to sing Muggle love songs for a day, or the door to Filch's office was glued shut. Even when they are doing things far, far, far more outrageous she had trouble keeping laughter on check.

The only problem was that she has a reputation to uphold, and she couldn't let it go to hell simply because those boys looked at her with puppy dog eyes. And she certainly couldn't show that she didn't completely disapprove of their actions, even if she sometimes thought the Slytherins could do with bringing down a peg or two.

The unfairness of life was blatant as she had to spend the ninety-nine percent of her time reprimanding two of the brightest and liveliest students she'd ever had, for things she couldn't stop herself smiling at.

Back in third year they managed to dye Professor Dumbledore's beard pink the morning on the first day. She is still puzzled over as to exactly how, as they hadn't seen the headmaster more than a few hours during the welcome feast. Albus even publicly congratulated them about such an advanced piece of magic when the laughter of the student body died down. She saw him fumble for a good half an hour to be able to undo that. Which was surprising, and Albus Dumbledore had just smiled an commented on the power of creative young minds.

Other things happened in class too. She once asked to the fourth year class to turn a teacup into a rat. It was a simple task, which objective was the acquisition of essential skills. She was walking around the class, noting down the progress of her students when she saw Black make the wrist movement correctly and fluidly and then: _pop_! A fat white rat with a pink tutu appeared. It was evident he had mastered the technique because the wandwork he had just realized was far more complex that the one she had asked. Still she felt compelled to ask:

"Weren't you supposed transform your teacup into a _normal_ rat, Mr. Black?" He looked up at her and with a lazy smile answer

"Sorry professor; but after transforming and dis-transforming my teacup into a regular rat about five times successfully, I felt like adding a creative touch."

She took points away, obviously, but she had to sympathise. Being always an advanced student herself she understood how repetitive classes could become. She just had such a blasé way of saying these things.

Once they managed to vanish the benches of the Slytherin table at the Great Hall in the middle of dinner. The startled students grabbed the tablecloths as they fell resulting in an utter disaster. The clutter and crashing of cutlery glassware and dishes was deafening, especially because it was accompanied by the outraged yelps of a quarter of Hogwarts students. She caught them that time because she overheard Frank Longbottom congratulating them over it (although he was supposed to be a prefect and the Head Boy and allegedly spent half of his life trying to repress them).

She was certain that they had been the cause of the dungeons flooding back in 1976. One day Slytherin woke up to find that the only way for the students to get to the Great Hall was through a meter deep of water. It took a week for Flitwick to completely undo the waterproofing spells that kept all that water stagnant.

She had also to tell Madame Pomfrey not to give the so-called Marauders any potions or medicines without informing her first when she found out they were using her confidentiality policy to get their casualties healed after their little mishaps. Poppy more than readily agreed because she was sick and tired of seeing them every other week and thought that having to suffer a bit would make them less reckless.

MacGonagall could swear that when she brought Black and Potter to Dumbledore's office (on regard of what allegedly was an accidental multi-coloration of Mrs Norris) she had the distinct impression that Headmaster's Black eyebrows would be permanently stuck to his hairline, and that his lips would disappear if he kept pressing them trying to contain what she believed was laughter.

For a while during sixth year Black took to charming the statues and suits of armour in the Transfiguration corridor to dance grotesquely. She only caught him the first time. Apparently he was greatly offended by the poor punishment (cleaning the trophy room for the umpteenth time) because from then to school year's end, every time she undid all the charmwork he put onto them, they would appear enchanted again the next day dancing different and even more creative dances. He almost drove her batty. She didn't catch him again once, and she did put alarm spells in the corridors.

And of all things, the seamless camaraderie and co-dependence Sirius had with James Potter was perhaps one of the most disturbing and endearing things she'd ever seen. They were from completely different backgrounds, had different tastes and attitudes towards the world in general, and still and one of the most solid friendships known to her.

James Potter talked a lot, even in class, especially in class. But last week Sirius Black had come to, at last, agree with her. Apparently his incessant prattling finally got onto his best friend's nerves. Once Mr. Potter stopped talking (for which Black and Lupin looked relived, the one because she assumes he wanted to daydream in peace and the other she likes to think wanted to listen) she asked him a question.

Potter sat there doing silent faces, mouthing inaudible words, and sputtering like an idiot. His fellow students contained their laughter, barely. She thought first he was mocking her and told him so (she took away points). He started mouthing frantically gesturing; and of a sudden he started punching Sirius Black's right arm.

She advanced towards them with an ominous dark look upon her face, and stopped in front of their desks.

"Mr. Black, would you mind removing the Silencing Spell from Mr. Potter, please?"

"Sorry, professor" he said with a cheeky knowing smile. "but he was babbling nonsense about the wonders of Evans' red-head mane." the mouthing became even more exaggerated.

"The spell Mr. Black."

And he did release Potter because then an ear-splitting yelled imprecations filled the class, adorned with vocabulary she hoped never to hear ever again, interspersed liberally with many instances of "I'll kill you I swear". She was about to bring it to Mr. Potters attention when Black did it for her.

"James, you're screaming." It was said evenly, casually even. He just earned himself a glare, several actually.

And She'd sighed, because those boys were exasperating, but at the same time she did have to remind to stop herself from chuckling.

But that last day, the last day something like that happened, was Monday. That last year she'd had seventh years first thing in the morning. She was about to begin with her lesson, when he heard the hurried footsteps of someone running in the corridor. She knew it was them, Potter, Black and Lupin; their seats at the back of the class were conspicuously empty.

The door of the class opened with a bang, rebounding against the wall. Those three appeared panting and out of breath as if they had run all the way from the Gryffindor Tower to her class, which was entirely possible. Potter had the tunic throw haphazardly over his shoulders as if dressed in a hurry. Lupin had to bend and put his hands to his knees to catch his breath because he was all red in the face.

So she composed her most stern face and inquired, to the only one who looked capable of articulating two words:

"And pray tell; which is the excuse for arriving late this time, Mr Black?"

"The usual Professor, James just wouldn't wake up" Potter glared at him. And she... she was taken aback by the surprising honesty. She frowned deeper.

"Ten points less each. You sit down, and I expect you to pay attention for the remainder of the class"

They chorused, truly chorused like overeager children, their agreement from the back of the classroom. She had to metaphorically shake her head. Incorrigible. Still you could feel gust of fresh air when they entered the room, and their youthful cheerfulness was contagious. She turned around and smiled into the blackboard.


	6. Chapter 6

_Author: shyangell & MorningDawn_

_DISCLAIMER: All the fictional characters appearing in this fanfiction story are not mine, they're J.K. Rowling's; and they are being used with the only purpose of personal entertainment._

_This story has been FINALLY revised. THIS CHAPTER IS NEWLY BETAED._

**CHAPTER 6**

_**Sirius Black trough Lily Evans and Remus Lupin's eyes: of superfluous and disconcerting muggle objects and other nonsense**_

_Life__ can either be accepted or changed. If it is not accepted, it must be changed. If it cannot be changed, then it must be accepted. (__Winston Churchill)_

Sirius didn't know anything about muggle culture, and neither was he interested in it. At least he didn't know anything of muggle culture for many years in which Lily knew him, and wasn't interested in any of it for more than scant seconds at a time. Still, he wasn't ever above using or taking profit of something of dubious origin if he found it useful or amusing in some way (and wasn't too complicated of mastering).

But overall, Sirius was too much of a Wizard. He worked like a wizard, thought like a wizard. Most Muggle gadgets and other modern technologies escaped his understanding of the needs and wants of people. He couldn't have fathomed why they were so helpful to ordinary people if you'd hit him with a clue bat. Mostly his logic was so magic based, so entrenched in the wizarding world that it was not revulsion that kept him from muggle technology. It was pure and simple mistrust of the unknown.

You see, most muggleborns and people of mixed origin often indulged in the use of muggle technologies even in possession of magic because of familiarity, comfort, speed, preference or even nostalgia. Sirius wasn't affected by any of these. To him a light bulb was as useless as dusty mould. Why bother when one had candles.

The first time Sirius assimilated something muggle Remus could still remember with astounding clarity. It was totally his fault, if he must say so, and was ready to take the blame. That summer Remus heard that song of The Beatles non stop because it was his mother's favourite. He hummed it along the months that followed. By the time school year ended Sirius had taken to sing _Hey Jude_ quite frequently; which apparently was quite catchy. By posterior commentaries he had the distinct impression that his parents hadn't liked the muggle pop song as much as his friend had.

Observing Sirius' relationship with muggle objects, was truly entertaining. His purely magical upbringing came to the forefront in full force, and he managed to come out either as a bigoted snot or a complete fool with scarcely any words at all.

In fourth year Remus gifted James with an alarm clock for his birthday. It was a muggle clock. James made fun of it and proclaimed that it would be utterly useless. However he made a show of setting it on his nightstand. It fell to Remus the thankless task of explaining to Sirius what the hell an alarm clock was.

Then, when realization finally came, he asked because he really had to ask, Sirius how exactly he woke up every morning. Or used to before you know... he started having trouble sleeping. Little boys _didn't_ have trouble sleeping after all.

"You see… up until my ninth birthday, Kreacher did." He'd said. "And exactly what creature was that?" he'd asked bewildered. Sirius had burst into fits of his bark-like laughter.

"Not any creature particularly but _Kreacher_! It's the darned house elf's name! A very ugly, annoying and downright unpleasant family elf, who takes pleasure from waking people up shrieking _good morning_ louder every time until you're out of bed. Just to try and commit elf-slaughter, mind you. Every day of your life at the crack of dawn. Mother's orders." He'd shrugged "You get used to it."

However, that Kreacher must've given him _the_ idea. After they waited hopefully for the alarm clock to ring his wake-up call on James and it proved absolutely useless as predicted (he had managed to ignore it for a whole hour until Remus dejectedly put it off). Sirius took the muggle clock with him. It didn't stay muggle much longer. He dismantled it, examined it piece by piece, Remus assumes that he enchanted it and then put it back together. No matter that he provably contravened half the Decree's legislature on muggle objects in the process. And, after all this, he gave it back to James.

The next morning, it started levitating while banging against James' head ever more frantically as he tried to ignore it. It rang and banged so loudly that in the end James fell from the bed. Pity for him that, that day, happened to be Sunday.

Sirius was perfectly able to understand most muggle things or deduce how they worked when it was convenient. He didn't have problems understanding. His peers might forget he wasn't familiar with these contraptions because he would handle them with so much ease than other wizards… James for example. James was unable to understand how you were supposed to write with a ball-pen; and was thusly the perfect example of why wizards and muggle objects shouldn't mix. Then again, sometimes Sirius would also suddenly ignore the most obvious and basic common sense and make a staggering muggle faux-pas... all the while provably looking offended.

Remus was a halfblood, and though his mother was a muggle, he didn't feel the compulsive need of talking of or using muggle appliances. When Lily entered Sirius' world as James' girlfriend, so did all sorts of muggle gadgets (mostly ordinary muggle gadgets).

She had the debatable virtue of being very persistent when she disapproved of something. For starters, she didn't understand the need to use a wand for something that you could easily do on your own without magic.

When Lily had come to wish them Merry Christmas that year they had been packing to go to James'. She'd watched them for a while, talked to them sitting on James' bed swinging her short legs like the little girl she wasn't. Suddenly she'd stood up and walked to stand by Sirius, who quite skilfully ignored her presence while waving his wand at his things so they would rise from the bed and fold themselves neatly in his trunk. She tapped her foot impatiently.

"You know Sirius, in the normal world people actually use their hands, now and then." She'd pointed. Clearly amused at her irritation, he'd answered:

"So do I. I use them to grab my wand." Lily was left fuming. Of course, she'd slo ignored the innuendo. "Aside of using them for handling your wand." We did say she was persistent. "I do use them for writing too." She'd glared. "Aside of using them for holding your wand _and_ writing."

"And other necessary feats of a personal nature I'm sure you'd..." Her half-horrified shriek got him the final point in that particular squabble. Sirius 1, Lily 0.

She got no real answer. But hey, Sirius Black was after all the wizard who believed a robot to be a sad parallelism of a domestic elf. And there was no need to tell how disastrous her attempts to explain the functioning of a car resulted. Or how many atrocities her newly acquired friend said about them. Remus was inclined to believe that the entire conversation about cars was tailored with the sole intention of horrifying Lily, because on the other hand Sirius became unusually interested in motorbikes, of all things.

She did convince him of the practicality of certain muggle attires: jeans (for the lack of robes mind you), t-shirts and short jackets; for they appealed to his restless personality and gave much more freedom of movement, even if he never did condescend to consider them any less sadly tacky. But that was at the time when apparently tacky appealed to Sirius. His opinion of muggle hairstyles though, was colourful at least. Once, eyeing a poster of a gorgeous rock star Lily was showing her friends he commented he looked rather like he was wearing a dead cat over his head. Lily snapped that he was green with envy. Mary said that she rather agreed with him; and with a flirty smile added that Sirius looked much better. Lily mimicked vomiting.

Remus remembered fondly the time she tried to explain Sirius the purpose of a Television. She was clearly close to being really upset and looked quite as red as her mahogany hair; and Remus himself was quite close to sniggering helplessly.

"And what exactly is the use for _that_?" he'd eyed her skeptically, eyebrows raised and expectant, once she'd explained him the concept.

"It tells you the news and stories with images." He'd scoffed, clearly unimpressed. "Well, that's what newspapers and books are for, Lils." He'd said with a tone of one who knows he has the whole weight of a generally acknowledged truth behind his statement. Remus thought that Lily might've murdered Sirius right on the spot.

The day that Lily decided to give up on Sirius was the day she'd tried to convince him of the usefulness of a simple calculator.

"But honestly Lily, it takes twice as long doing all this figures and numbers with that thing, than using a quill and piece of parchment." and as Lily was going to argue his point added: "And besides, you're not going to be allowed to use that in the tests."

Lily sadly had to acknowledge that he had a point, and snapped her mouth shut with an audible click. She couldn't argue with the painstaking solidity of _that_ line of reasoning. _Maybe_ the wizarding way had got its logic to it, but still, she couldn't work her way around it.


	7. Chapter 7

_Author: shyangell & MorningDawn_

_DISCLAIMER: All the fictional characters appearing in this fanfiction story are not mine, they're J.K. Rowling's; and they are being used with the only purpose of personal entertainment._

_This story has been FINALLY revised. THIS CHAPTER IS NEWLY BETAED._

**CHAPTER 7**

_**Sirius Black trough James Potter's eyes: on the off chance, of Defense and Offence**_

_God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. ( Reinhold Niebuhr)_

Everybody knew that Severus Snape was obsessed with the Dark Arts, and that he probably was the one with a wider knowledge in the field from all students currently attending Hogwarts. But if there ever was someone who got remotely close to Snape, that was Sirius. Not another pureblood canny power-thirsty cunning _Slytherin_, but Sirius. Well, Sirius _was_ a pureblood.

Perhaps, upon reflection, the greatest difference between them was intent. Although Sirius practically knew, or had heard about any curse in the book, every dark creature and artefact in existence, he didn't relish the practice of the Dark Arts itself.

But Sirius, it turned out, wasn't particularly upset by the use of black magic, and definitely not as much as he should have been had he actually been _normal_. Most people would've been revolted by things he merely considered _unfortunate_. Which doesn't go to say Sirius was heartless, because he wasn't. He had merely been... desensitized.

He found himself in the awkward position of sitting in a kind of wizarding middle-ground. He cared to learn anything that would serve him, keeping to some kind of moderately strict moral standards. He cared for the Dark Arts only for how they would help his knowledge of people, of possible future enemies, and perhaps most relevantly to secure his security and that of those close to him.

Sirius arrived to Hogwarts already being capable of casting the nastiest stinging spell James ever had the misfortune of encountering. Then the Slytherin slimy smelly bigots discovered how able he was with that other spell… what's-its-name… anyways, the one that left painful scratches and red blotches all over your target. Yes, that one.

As of late, his favourite was a truly nasty _Apneo_ curse. Apparently it left the victim unable to breathe properly for as long the spell held, although it was never meant to kill. At least it didn't unless you held it long enough. And Sirius wasn't going to do that. People mouthed and gasped when it was cast upon them, and coughed violently when released. Emmeline Vance told him it was supposed to be rather like holding someone's head underwater; air burning in your lungs, your vision swimming because of asphyxia. Not that Sirius had done it to her.

Then there was that non-verbal hex that was able to throw someone backwards a few yards. It truly was one of his favourites. He used it a lot, and it provided some fantastic dramatic flair to any episode with asshole viper Slytherins and such. He usually pulled that one out when someone's bigotry made him lose his temper (often), and possibly felt like punching them… Which really meant no-one important was harmed. And to James, that was everything.

Sirius was like a bomb about to set off ninety-nine percent of the time he was awake. You could learn to get on his right side, to could even start to predict his outbursts, to learn to deflect and avoid them… but you could never ever aspire to control them. Or suffocate them. Sirius' ire, once unleashed had to run its entire course before it died down.

His family was the key to all that barely suppressed anger. Other things as well, but it was mostly his family. Sirius' family was entirely prejudicial to his friend's health, and by extension to everyone else's. Sirius might very well be developing an ulcer soon, and everyone else might need to start wearing helmets. Sirius just didn't deal with stress and upsetting situations like any sane person. James didn't know if Sirius actually felt pain over his family. They were guys, and you just don't talk about these things. But he bottled it all up, and other people sure as hell _felt_ pain loud and clear when a hex came their way. Most of them deserved it, but some even he had to admit were just being _there_.

The Black Family's uniquely prejudicial influence couldn't be appreciated better that in either the Defence Against the Dark Arts sessions or Quidditch. At least James rather thought so.

When they were in third year they'd learnt to repel boggarts. And while that was nothing new or truly exciting, a rather eye-opening episode took place that made sure James wished he never had to meet Mrs. Black.

They had been practicing with a real boggart, in an empty old classroom. A rather unique opportunity. I didn't look like Sirius appreciated it much

James remembers it, mostly because it was that memorable, not because he's the sort to remember every itsy-bitsy tiny little thing. He remembers Alice Dowell coming forward, the boggart turned into a hulking hideous troll. The Fabian Prewett, who apparently was afraid of vampires. Then Michelle Fenton was who was horrified at the sight of a big fat rat. Lily Evans came forward, and the boggart turned into a bee's swarm. When it was Remus' turn it turned into the fat pale face of the full moon, although luckily nobody noticed or seemed to gleam its meaning. To Mary MacDonald there was nothing more terrifying than a ghostly bangshee. Jocelyn Wright was sacred of rabid dogs. And it was then, when they were the only two left, Sirius and him. Sirius came forward, the boggard seemed for a moment suspended in time and sizzled in place noticeably struggling in mid-air against something entirely invisible.

"It is forbidden to use occlumancy in my class, Mr. Black" the voice of Professor Merrythought impatiently called out over the heads of her curious students. All eyes seemed for one terrible moment to be centered on Sirius, whose eyes were tightly shut. He peeled an eye open and looked at the now frizzy fluffy lapdog with bug-eyes. His face fell, shoulders slumping ever-so-slightly. You could almost hear the resigned sigh coming out of his lips.

_Snap_!

The rabid dog turned lapdog disappeared, giving place to a tall beautiful woman. She was dressed in dark and rich blue robes with a generous cleavage that fell smartly and embellished her lithe body and pale complexion. Her neck sported a series of ostentatious necklaces with shining diamonds, and her heavy earrings shone with the force of a thousand suns. She was very pale, rather like the dead. Her slender hands with long fingers were those of someone who hasn't worked to earn their keep in their life. Her hair was midnight black, verily like raven's wing. She was elegant and stern, her delicate facial features would have been beautiful if the contemptuous smile she was sporting hadn't done everything possible to change that. She bore her grey eyes upon a very pale Sirius, her finger raised to point at him ominously. He was so pale you could've taken him for a ghost. He froze.

Her mouth opened and an ear-splitting shriek poured forth. "You, shame of my flesh! You are not worthy of carrying the surname Black! You are the shame of your family!" the terrible yelling only augmented in volume in each passing second. "I'm ashamed of having to call you my son! Have you not listened at all?! Associating with mudblood-lovers and…"

They weren't allowed to hear her rant to completion because Sirius seemed to shake off his the grip of paralyzing terror and bounded forward shouting "_riddikulus!_" At once a very shocked Mrs. Black was holding her throat unable to produce a sound, she was also dressed in dirty rags and her hair was matted; her beauty prematurely aged.

After a few shocked moments of silence James burst out laughing. Which, okay, nobody ever accused James of being sensitive. A few sniggers from others than himself were heard.

"Sirius is afraid of Mummy!" James breathed while drying the tears from his eyes. Laughter, full-bellied laughter soon spread through the class, and Professor Merrythought did little to prevent it. "_James_." And James just couldn't stop laughing. "Oh, come on. I mean, your mother?" The look Sirius sent him could've pulverized diamonds.

"Shut up James, or for Merlin's Frizzy Beard, I swear I'll hex you to next week and back." James of course didn't stop. "I mean it!"

Then, the boggart exploded.

By lunch that very day, all school knew with varying shades of accuracy what had happened. Which of course seemed to give _carte_ _blanche_ to everyone and anyone to comment on it. "Charming lady your mother, mate!" People started stopping them in the corridors, people stopped by in the Great Hall.

Sirius was pretty much expeditious, of course. With Sirius you couldn't expect anything less. If anything, he knew how to take care of a reputation.

He charmed James' glasses to flash him outrageous nonsense at odd intervals, leaving him practically blind and forcing him to _beg_ for forgiveness _before_ the next Quidditch match. He put two fourth years in the Hospital Wing by the end of the week and curses flew whenever someone looked at him sideways. That pretty much convinced everyone that whatever the hell happened to Sirius' Blacks boggart wasn't their damn business. And that was that.

James though, never gave true importance to Sirius' occlumancy skills until much later.

James committed the imprudence of taking divination during his third, fourth and fifth years. Then Professor Baxton tried to teach them the complicate subtleties of simple legeremancy. Talking about reading someone's mind like you'd talk of reading a crystal ball was a bit stupid. He was firmly convinced legeremancy had nothing to do with Divination. He was never any good at divination, much less mind-reading; in fact he was quite lousy at it.

He had to practice on someone, so he asked, naturally, his best friend Sirius, who, lucky bastard didn't take Divination.

After many attempts James was _very_ frustrated. For a long while the only thing he saw was a thick mist, not unlike when you gazed into the crystal ball. After a while he began to see something, and he felt relieved. His exhilaration passed as he realized it was a pink flowery teapot. When his attempts to move on to pastures new failed him for a good half-hour, he exclaimed.

"Sirius you cannot be thinking about my mother's teapot!"

"Why not, Prongsie?" he said with a smug expression about him.

"Aaaargh!" James gave up frustrated and went up to dear Ol' Moony, tearing a book out of his hands: "Remus, you don't know how to use occlumancy, don't you?"

The same reason that made Sirius good at cursing people, mostly aim (Pads could hit a guy in the eye at the end of one very long corridor from the opposite end), made him wonderful beater.

He was a brilliant and valuable player and was in the team since his fourth year. He was a problematic member though, because he was very temperamental. He became irreplaceable in short time, as he was a whirlwind who appeared to be at all places at once and he managed to imprint a bone breaking force to the bludgers.

Playing against Slytherin he showed a special viciousness. His hatred to his adversaries traduced into a very troubled game for the opponent team.

When Regulus Black joined the Slytherin Quidditch team Fabian Prewett, the new Keeper, asked jokingly if Sirius would be able to hit his brother with the bludger. Later on he proved to be more than able of doing so. Poor Reggie's first match ended, more than predictably to James, in the infirmary.

In fifth year he hit a very nasty Slytherin commentator with the bludger to. It was an allegedly accidental occurrence that got him a three months sanction from Professor MacGonagall. James, the newly appointed captain, was so furious with him that almost kills him.

When Sirius ran away from home it was the bloodiest match in Hogwarts History. The game they played against Slytherin was long and brutal. You could almost hear the crackling sound of tension in the air. Sirius' rage adopted the form of a shower of bludgers upon any member of the Slytherin team, and specially Regulus, with a truly malicious aiming.

It was irrelevant how many times James told and pleaded with Sirius to excersise restraint.

"Please try to avoid sending your brother to the infirmary in a matchbox, you big ponce!"

Gryffindor didn't usually play dirty, save for occasional mistakes. Chivalry and honour, and all that stuff. Slytherin did _always_ play dirty. But Sirius proved he could play dirtier still.

James himself finished that mach out of sheer stubbornness, because they broke his leg. If he wasn't mistaken they were very close to breaking the totality of the seven hundred rules of Quidditch.

As it was a proved fact that Sirius hit the bludgers harder when he was angry, and significantly better aimed when he was pissed at his family. James found himself praying for a letter from home to arrive just before the matches against Slytherin on occasion.

He even tried to get Regulus Black to piss dear Sirius off. Not that he got what he wanted but it was worth a shot. Maybe not, because he would have had to stop him from spending all that pent-up anger in an impromptu duel with some Slytherin arsehole… which he would have invariably won, satisfying his need to bang someone's head open.

The woes of a Quidditch Captain. James had to endure what you wouldn't believe.

Anger and adaptation. Besides being capable of building himself into impressive rages, Sirius could also be incredibly slippery. The adaptability that made him an ace in transfiguration, how his wristjob took profit from the flexibility of that slender wrist and long nimble fingers could be observed in biggest proportions when he took to a field in which he was a natural.

They started duelling two years ago, after the O.W.L.s. Sirius had been defter in that field than anybody he had ever seen, since the first moment Professor Merrythought said "you may begin" for the first time. He was fast and had good aim and even better footwork.

He swirled and dodged without loosing his composure one second. Spinning on his heels and making sharp turns that kept him safely out of harm's way. Not a hair out of place while he cast shield charms, curses, counter-curses and thought of creative ways of unbalancing his opponent.

Sirius made duelling look rather like a deadly dance. It had a dangerous mesmerizing beauty to it that was sometimes hypnotic. Like the cobra rocking way and forth before it bolts and sinks her lethal fangs on her victim's neck.

Not that James himself was bad at Defence. But he knew that he wouldn't be able to beat his friend in a one-to-one real duel. He was fast, but so was Sirius. And while he tired easily after a while, Sirius was able to keep a frenetic pace for a long while, forcing his opponents to loose ground, falling more and more into defensive positions, until he cornered them and they were at his mercy.

And merciless he was. James had the distinct impression that Sirius liked to play with what James mentally called his _victims_. Sirius played the cat and the mouse for a long time. He often saw how he could've finished the duel in little time, taking advantage of an opening on his incautious rival's defences. He _could_ finish a duel in short, attacking with lightning speed, before no-one noticed what had happened. More often though, he taunted and played with them. He allowed his companions to think that just maybe this once, they had a real chance. He feinted, falsely retreated… And then started pressing. Ruthlessly firing curse after curse, while the other slowly realized that they had no way out, and their features changed to something close to despair.

Because they were on the verge of a war, and they were all very conscious that had it been in a real duel, they wouldn't have survived.

James felt a bit scared of Sirius at times like this. When his friend's features set, eyes the only thing alive on a blank face that was a dead mask… he felt shivers run down his spine. They were features he knew very well, how the slight curling of his upper lip was the only show of physical exercise. The hair fell gracefully over his eyes, obscuring them from view and veiling their scorching intensity.

They were eyes of a mercurial nature. They looked like pools of quicksilver when pulling a prank or shinning with amusement. They were almost translucent in their silvery white when were filled with worry. Steely grey showed contempt, disdain, and cold, quiet anger. But when anger unleashed and all that struggling energy and barely concealed magical power went loose, his eyes were like stormy clouds.

Sirius had a volatile energy, constrained into some invisible and fairly fragile bonds; and with great effort barely kept in check. His personality contained something explosive, irrepressible, that could be released at any moment. And the violence of duel fighting unleashed that energy. The feral movements showed true mastery in this primitive gamble for survival.

James watched Sirius feint and dodge Jocelyn Wright's curse in the empty space in the middle of the room. Sirius hadn't made yet a true effort to take her out, limiting his movements to dodging and confusing her for a while. Her hair clips had falled, her blond hair was all messed up and she looked harried. Then Sirius' eyes took sight of him as he rolled his eyes, and he sprang into action.

In a series of quick steps and a succession of curses he sent her stumbling backwards, clearly unable to properly contain the sudden fury of Sirius' attack. He had the look upon him now. The one which told you there was no mercy left.

His hands are a blur. His wand swept rose and fell; changed from hand to hand, confusing his adversary with attacks from both sides. Because Sirius was ambidextrous. Correction: he was left-handed but for practical reasons he'd been forced to learn to both hands with equal precision.

Jocelyn had already stopped trying to attack, and was barely able to contain the onslaught. The stunning spell caught her on the chest and she fell backwards. Sirius had won this time too, but he didn't look satisfied.

The mask fell, and he was the Sirius they all knew and loved. As Professor Merrythought reanimated the poor girl, he squatted down to her level, and politely asked if she was right. She smiled, and James could tell she was not afraid anymore. He'd been forgiven.

James wondered if he was going to be seeing Sirius like that more frequently in the future. He didn't know what future was out there waiting for them. He didn't know how long was this war going to last. He didn't know how it would affect them. But he knew that neither of them would sit crossed legged waiting for Doom's Day. And he was very grateful that he and Sirius would never have to fight on different sides.


	8. Chapter 8

_Author: shyangell & MorningDawn_

_DISCLAIMER: All the fictional characters appearing in this fanfiction story are not mine, they're J.K. Rowling's; and they are being used with the only purpose of personal entertainment._

_This story has been FINALLY revised. THIS CHAPTER IS NEWLY BETAED._

**CHAPTER 8**

_**Sirius Black seen trough Lily Evan's eyes: Lily Discovers Sirius' Wonderful Family. **_

_Distinguished ancestors shed a powerful light on their descendants, and forbid the concealment either of their merits or of their demerits. (__Gaius Sallustius Crispus)_

_Nothing is so soothing to our self-esteem as to find our bad traits in our forebears. It seems to absolve us. (__Van Wyck Brooks)_

Lily never understood the fuss that the Sorting Hat placing Sirius in Gryffindor created in the whole of the Wizarding Educational Institution System; in other words, Hogwarts School of Wizardry and Witchcraft.

To Lily, who didn't know Sirius quite well, he was just another preppy spoilt brat, who had always new expensive robes, the last broom model and whose father's influence was significant enough to intimidate a certain kind of people.

Therefore Sirius appearing in the society pages of the Daily Prophet around their third year at Hogwarts was more of a joke to be shared with her friends. She still remembers the headings. She saw the newspaper that morning because she was subscribed to it. It read something in the lines of "_the classy presentation in society of four young boys of this family and this other to the high wizarding clases in society on New Year's Eve_". Apparently it had been_ a very happy occasion_.

Sirius looked as if he was being led to the scaffold. His face was contorted into a look of contrariness and annoyance. She'd had to laugh at the irony. Alice had gone to babble about it to the devil himself:

"Hey I saw you in the papers!" This was mostly because although Lily herself was too sensible to engage with a conversation with one of those troublemakers, Alice was not.

"You and half of the wizarding world, thank god the other half is too sensible to read the society pages." answered a very snappy Sirius Black. Alice bless her, ever the optimistic kind, just didn't give up.

"So it wasn't such a happy evening after all." she said, smiling widely, and her plump cheeks appeared rounder and redder than normal. Sirius groaned.

"Happy my ass! My only consolation was the damn eggnog!"

Lily had to bite her tongue to avoid the temptation of telling him off for underage drinking and lecture him about the prejudicial effects of alcohol.

Still it was the first time the idea Sirius' family fortune started to sink in her thick skull. Don't mistake Lily, she knew Sirius was rich: he always had new books, he never used anything with the slightest appearance of being old, and wore a wristwatch of what she thought was ivory and silver. He spoke in a posh fashion too. The director of his father's corporation, from London, had appeared in the television once, and had an accent that was somewhat similar. Still, you had to be very high up to be presented in society at just fourteen.

Lily met Sirius' brother once. She was looking for him on regard of a very distasteful prank on a Huffelpuff boy. She saw him on the end of the corridor connecting with Flitwick's office. She remembers calling him and yelling angrily:

"Black! Stop you, son of a bitch!"

When he'd turned around she'd realized what a huge mistake she had committed. The boy looked just like Sirius, long soft inky hair fell over his eyes, of silvery nature. His face was also ghostly pale; he was tall, far taller than her, and thin, so very thin… But the colour of his tie and the hems of his tunic were the tell-tale signs of her mistake; that she had gotten the wrong Black, for he belonged to Gryffindor. And she knew Sirius wouldn't lower himself to dress Slytherin colours, not even for a prank. Ashamed, she went all red.

"Erm... I'm sorry. I kind of thought you were someone else."

"Really… eh… Evans isn't?"

His eyebrows were raised and furrowed, emphasizing another feature both borther shared. His look was of utter disdain.

"I won't deny he is an SOB." She blushed further still, practically ready to grovel. "But as in Sirius Orion Black…" he continued relentlessly. "I'm afraid you got the rest of the letters wrong."

She still didn't know if he was cracking a joke, being insolent or feeling offended, either on behalf of Sirius or his mother. But it had looked a bit like he was defending Sirius, which was surprising considering how he had become the blank of many of Sirius' pranks and jokes. Maybe it's because she was a _mudblood_, and thus, had to make her shut up.

When she was made Head Girl in their last year, she had to meet with Professor Dumbledore in his office for the first time. She'd been a very good student; she'd never really had the chance to see Dumbledore's office. She was really nervous. While they waited, she and Potter from all people, she contemplated the portraits of the former Headmasters and Headmistresses of Hogwarts. They looked solemnly down upon them, their faces grave and scrutinizing.

A little voice on her head seemed to tell her: _be aware, ten centuries of history contemplate you!_ She was delusional with nerves; she had to remind herself to play it cool. It wouldn't do to have Potter know she was nervous.

She was very surprised to discover one Headmaster Black hanging on the left wall from Dumbledore's desk. He didn't look very nice to her. The grey almost translucent eyes (apparently they were a family trait) were boring a hole onto her skull. She felt like the late headmaster was capable of seeing right through her, as if she was a bug under a microscope he found particularly interesting. There was no smile gracing his features, but rather a very disquieting sneer. He dressed in the greens and silver of Slytherin. She watched around and could see that he was part of a blatant exception, because there were very few of those.

She remembered a conversation she'd with Remus once while patrolling the corridors together, after their initial fumbling around their opposed worldviews of _why-do-you-go-with-those-pig-headed-arseholes _and_ you-could-give-James-a-chance. _She doesn't know how but they ended up discussing Black. Apparently there are only three people that can always see right through him: James, Professor MacGonagall and probably Sirius' mother. And one portrait. A painting that according to Remus looks like Sirius would have two centuries ago and forty years more. She can't say that's too off the mark. Apparently the old piece of canvas is a Sirius simultaneous translator, able to detangle the most complicated of the verbal exercises his great-great-grandson can engage in.

Is that thing capable of reading everyone just as well?

She is glad when after the short interview with Dumbledore she is allowed to loose sight of Sirius' disquieting ancestor.

She later liked to think that the reason that she never truly understood nothing about Sirius' family affairs was because she never took an interest into learning how wizarding society worked. True, that at first she'd thought that it couldn't be much different to muggle society…

But it was a much more complex reality. You could be a pure-blooded or a muggle born, the invisible line separating both divisions as firmly as a stone wall would. Not rich or poor only, as happened to the world she had been used to.

They were those who ruled the world, the big pure-blood families. The ones with all the privileges, the money, the influence… being one of them was almost like being of royal blood.

Then there was people like her, with only muggle relatives, in whom the resilient magical gene had somehow resurfaced after so many generations that no-one could remember any kind of connection with magic. They were new to this world. They were alone. No wizard understood your family status in muggle society, you had no influence… you ignored so many things. For starters you ignored all those taboos, unspoken rules and generally acknowledged facts the others knew. No matter where you came from you had to start again all on your own, you were the lowest of the lowest.

Of course they were those people who stood in-between, balancing in the middle of two different, conflicting and opposing worlds, like Remus, like Mary, like Michelle… those who sympathised.

But she thought of it all as a huge mistake that could be changed, and would be changed soon because, come on, they were in the twentieth century. The upcoming war would slowly make her change her mind. It would make her painfully aware that things would only change at a very high price, never pacifically, at the cost of many people's lives… That the old order would refuse to die, and would cling to their out-fashioned beliefs till their dying breath, that they would cling to their old dusty privileges. And the new order she had dreamt of would only be build upon the blood of so many innocents…

Going out with James offered her the opportunity to pry into the confusing knotted tangle that was wizarding kinship, relations and society in general. Finding herself ignorant of something mentioned in a conversation wasn't her cup of tea, so she asked as many questions as she could, when she could.

Not that her best girl friends hadn't been able to introducer her to wizards in general. Alice was from what she understood, a very respectable family, and Mary had a witch mother and a father that was muggle. But she had been disinclined to admit her ignorance to her friends, of letting the perfection mask drop. Admit she could be ignorant. And taking into consideration her more than apparent shows of dislike, they didn't gossip much in front of her.

With the boys it was different. Despite her former prejudices about the lot of them, she found their company agreeable, warm and welcoming. It was easy to get all sorts of information from them without any kind of strange looks. Only a bit of glee.

They didn't care about taboos, about what wasn't said or done. They did not care about what wasn't polite to say, and were never afraid of mentioning something they thought she might disagree with. They were unafraid and open, and they had also the uncanny ability of catching her unspoken questions before she ever completely registered them. They showed her a critical view of the wizarding world, by wizards and for wizards, making fun of its defects and offering her an insider's look that was invaluable.

She started to take notice of the big families' names, the undercurrents of opinion. The power clusters, the lobbies. Politics, was everywhere.

She found amusing trying to detangle the complicated family relations of pure-blooded families. She mentally must've considered them part of an anecdotic world order, she found difficult to believe it still survived. It was all so alien to her. Her thirst for knowledge of any kind spurred her on with her curiosity. After she had thoroughly interrogated James about the matter, going back as long as he could remember, and finding out that probably she was one of the only people in the school he wasn't related to (and didn't that put things into perspective); she thought she had already discovered what it was all about.

She was wrong. No matter how deep she pried into James' or Peter's family, nothing could prepare her for catching a glimpse of what true wizarding nobility was like. What Sirius' wolrd was like.

Sirius received a watch as a coming-of-age present; as it seemed was traditional amongst wizarding families. It was a very expensive watch, white gold from what she could tell; it contained several concentrically astrological orbs of a pearly material. A coat of arms was discretely engraved on the cover. The box in which was stowed, and the velvety cushions talked about a private commission.

One year later and with enough familiarity to spare, she'd asked to have a look at it because she was fascinated by the engravings in the spheres. It was then that Lupin mentioned how strange it was he'd received such a gift considering Sirius' present circumstances:

"Weren't you disowned Padfoot?"

"Officially, yes." he said without tearing his gaze away from whatever he was reading. "Must've been Uncle Alphard."

James then asked his best friend if said uncle was the same one they bumped into while in Digaon Alley; the one who wore a monocle and looked a bit eccentric.

"Well, yes. That'd be uncle Alphard" Sirius smiled fondly. "The only man who ever dared call mother _Wally_."

His friends erupted in laughter at that, while she furrowed her brow. Until now Sirius' had been totally impervious to her previous attempts at nosing into his life. He proclaimed he liked her quite a lot, but still, not enough to let her pry into something he'd rather forget existed.

She was then summarily informed that Alphard Black was Sirius' maternal uncle. She told him, very convinced of her what she was saying, that he must've said it wrong because there was no way he could be his mother's brother and have his father's surname at the same time.

Sirius just stared at her, looking a bit sad for her, and then pinched the bridge of his nose.

"No I haven't gotten it wrong, Lily. It's my family after all." his lips stretched into a thin smile, as if talking about it was painful "My mother's maiden name was Black."

She'd only gaped.

"Never heard of the fact that some families tend to tie their people short in order to avoid the scattering of fortunes by, sometimes, uniting different familiar branches in holly matrimony, Red?" She hated that name, but his biting tone made her think it twice before saying it now. He sounded a bit bitter.

"But…" she spluttered "…that would made them cousins. Right?"

Even Peter snorted.

"Yes first cousins once removed." He said with a cutting edge to his voice. Then his face suddenly brightened up, his features shifting to create a devilish smile. It was a smile that announced that he was going to make fun of her. A really clever rouse to get attention on someone else but him. His tone was of mock reverence now: "That's what I believe it's called inbreeding, my dear Lily."

"Ja!" James crowed.

Lupin, apparently as quick as her at catching wind of the need to change the mood and steer away of this kind of conversation, took the opportunity:

"And you are the reason it should be forbidden, Pads." Patted him on the head. And they all erupted in laughter again. Tension diverted.

Sirius' family was not something you could go gratuitously mentioning in a conversation with him, because although he tried to hide it and act as if he couldn't care less, it did hurt him. Their rejection still hurt like a bleeding wound that refuses to heal and keeps reopening regularly.

It was early morning, during their breakfast meal in the Great Hall, previous to a very long class of Ancient Runes. Sirius, Padfoot as the boys had dubbed him, often stole Remus' newspaper during breakfast because doing the crosswords amused him. Ancient Runes was too boring to actually pay attention to the teacher, so he just _needed_ that crosswords. Personally, as she could never ever finish one, was unable to understand it. That morning Daily Prophet had a suspected Death Eaters article front page. "Bellatrix Lestrange suspected of Death Eater activities", it read.

"Looks like dear Bella got herself into deep trouble." he muttered as he eyed the newspaper darkly.

"Who?" she'd said, confused for just a moment. James though, had apparently caught on faster than her:

"Bellatrix Lestrange, right?" Lily, who had been looking at her own newspaper, wrinkled her nose. "You know her?"

She looked at the young woman attentively. She had a fierce, cruel, unforgiving look to her. Her inky straight and lank hair fell around her face giving her a dead look. She was very pale, her strong jawbone protruding forwards in an impossibly arrogant pose; she eyed disdainfully the reader. She supposed she could have been considered beautiful, if you were the kind to consider frostbite attractive.

"Of course, Bella's maiden name was Black." He said trying to sound nonchalant.

He folded the newspaper, raising it to be side by side with his face and contorting it into a face of utter and haughty disgust said, in a clearly accurate imitation of the portrayed woman: "We do look alike, don't we?"

After that Lily decided she'd definitely be happier if she just ignored anything else to do with Sirius' family from now on. And she did remain blissfully in her ignorance until Remus exclaimed one morning:

"Look Sirius! Happy news in the family! Your cousin is marrying!" It was plain to see he was teasing him, even if the tease was far from kind. Sirius snatched the paper out of his hands, scanned the article quickly with his eyes, and made a disgusted grunt.

"Oh god, it had to be him! Bet anything mother is behind it!" The sole idea had seemed more than repulsing to him.

"_Who_?" Lily found herself asking stupidly for the umpteenth time, as she always did when Sirius got to talking of these things, about these people.

"My cousin Cissy is marrying." He said as he pointed to a pale, petite, blond and delicate looking young woman plastered on the society pages of the Prophet.

"And what exactly does your mother have to do with that?" She never got an answer, but by then she already knew enough as to give up when Sirius was diverting onto another subject. It was possible that he didn't know either.

She did notice though, that they didn't sound like the affectionate kind of family. Either way Sisiur seemed to extract an uncommon amount of glee out of referring to them with pet-names. When they returned from the Easter break, which she learnt he'd spent with a cousin he was in good terms with. He did start talking of her rather horrible taste for names:

"Tell you all, the poor kid complains her name is horrible. And I can't say it isn't true. Looks like Andy got a bit overenthusiastic."

"Oh, come on, it can't be that bad." Remus said. "A classical name isn't that terrible after a while." experience talking, she thought.

"Remus! It's Nymphadora, for Merlin's Beard." he exclaimed, but he did look amused, as if he found the whole thing a big joke. "Me and her father have been forced to call her Dora. It's nicer of us, really."

"Yuck, I'd kill my mother if she'd done that!" James, so very sensitively pointed out.

"Can't assure that in a few years she doesn't do just that." He paused and added after a moment. "But what can you honestly expect; her name _is_ Andromeda, after all."

"So that is the reason you basically never use the extended proper version of any name in your family? Because they are too much of a mouthful?"

"Meh… Nope, dear Lily…" His smartass smirk began to appear on his lips. "It's to piss them off! Oh, come on! They're all horrible astronomical names, pompous and all… It does them a favour."

"Astronomical names… There can't be so many of those." She said. "Doesn't it get confusing."

"Never underestimate what we can come to use as a name." He quipped. "Oh, let's see how rusty you astronomy lessons have become… Andy stands for Andromeda, which is supposed to be…"

"A mythology figure, but you said astrological so a galaxy I guess." she said, while James and Peter looked at her incredulously and sensing this would be one boring conversation.

"Bing! One point to Lily. Great! And one which supposed to nestle newborn stars… Catch the hidden significance of the name? Besides in the myth, she was a Greek maiden whose mother tried to sell her in matrimony but was chained by the gods and a knight in shining armour had to come and rescue her. Ah… the strange parallelism…" He sighed as if touched "So on… Bella stands for Bellatrix, which is…"

"In Orion right?" she said scrunching her nose.

"Correct!" he said, feigning surprise. He was feigning, he always told her she was a Know-it-all. "Specifically the one which stands for Orion's right shoulder. Meaning that, as the eldest in our generation, she was supposed to become, if failing to be others, father's right hand. It's the so called Amazone or the Warrior Star… a blood-red star. I must admit it suits her."

"And the one in the papers? The one who married…" she honestly couldn't remember exactly who.

"Cissy?" he chuckled. "Cissy stands for Narcissa, and that is…"

"Ehmm…"

"Absolutely nothing to do with stars!" he exclaimed in glee. "The exception that confirms the general rule. It's a flower name, like her mother's family generally does; the Rosiers, mind you. She is the third daughter of the third sibling of the third brother off the line of inheritance. She was spared."

"And your brother?"

"Reg stands for Regulus, obviously…" He said looking at her over the bridge of his nose. "It's a star in Leo. It marks the centre of the constellation. It's kind of ironical you know…" he said lost for a moment in his own musings "that mother's favourite son would be the one named after a star that is commonly called the _cor leonis_. More cowardly than a mouse, that one. Personally," he snapped out of it "I prefer the explanation that says it's the latin form for 'little king'."

"But how many names can you get out of constellations… I mean most stars are named just after numbers."

Sirius' brought up his hands, counting with his long elegant fingers. "Let's see" she knows he is telling her all this because he loves to see her squirm and feel baffled, but she'll indulge him "there's Orion, my father. Then there's Walburga, and that's my mother…"

When she fails to understand he tells her it's a time in the year when constellations align and is believed to be specially beneficial for magic; _witch's hour_ they call it…

"Arcturus, Cygnus, Alphard called Hydra's Heart or the Loner Star…" and he goes on undeterred "Cassiopeia, Ursula, Castor, Pollux… and if you go back in time there have been some less common ones like Polaris, Denebe, Aquila, Aldebaran, Betelgeuse, Cepheus, Berenice, Vega, Crux, Perseus, Draco, Adara, Charis, Altair, Denebola, Merope, Antares, Procyon, Cetus, Phoenix, Scorpius, Rigel, Auriga, Corvus, Coronna, Leon, Libra, Carina, Columba, Hydra, Lyra, Norma, Vela…" he pauses as if he's thinking, possibly to catch a breath. "And if you add all the family names which essentially mean _black_, just for redundancy… let's see Phineas, Melania, Nigellus, Luctretia, Belvina… you can pick and choose."

"Uh…" she coughs "well, looks like a deep-seated tradition."

Sirius snorts loudly in a quite undignified fashion, and proceeds to complain about how incredibly corny and out-fashioned it all is. That they actually mark them not unlike a giant arrow over your head would.

"Well, and what do you get called?" she says knowing that letting Sirius time to brood does no-one a favour. And Sirius looks, for once dumbfounded. "Don't tell me everyone got a pet name but you!"

He the gets an outraged look about himself.

"Oh, come on my name can't be shortened, thank god. What would it be? Siri!?" he says with derision, he reproduces that inelegant snort from before. "It's bad enough without having to deal with ridiculous abbreviations."

"Sirius is actually nice." she says. "It's got a nice meaning. It's the brightest star in the skies and after all…" she says sweetly, soothingly. She's very good at that. "Besides it suits you specially. _Seirios _means flames, and Sirius you've got quite the temper!" she adds laughing, and as the other look at her as if she had grown a second head. "What, I looked it up. I was just curious!"

Sirius though isn't looking incredulously at her for the same reason.

"Oh, come on! The worst is how this name of mine becomes the source of continued amusement of my so called friends…" he starts making voices, back to the funny business. "Are you serious? _No you are._ Are you serious? _No I'm James. _Come on this is _siriusly_ ridiculous. Oh my, this is _siriusly_ absurd…"

His words are soon suffocated by three guffaws. And Sirius sits there straight faced with both eyebrows raised and lips pressed tight and as he sighs dramatically.

"Children!"

She really has to try hard not to hold back merry tears.

But she has the feeling that she understands him for a moment. His bitter resentment as how a mere name marks him among the crowd. How his name claims him, how it is a statement of where he comes from, and how it hinders him in his flight. It is a statement in the face of others.

And so he laughs because he doesn't know how to cry.

And in a flash of empathy understands that he is afraid that it might weight him down all his life. That he is afraid it will claim him in the end. He fears that there is no true escaping. And she fears for him, and sees, outsider as she is, what he already knows, that he can run all he wants, because it'll all catch up with him before the end comes.


	9. Chapter 9

_Author: shyangell & MorningDawn_

_DISCLAIMER: All the fictional characters appearing in this fanfiction story are not mine, they're J.K. Rowling's; and they are being used with the only purpose of personal entertainment._

_This story has been FINALLY revised. THIS CHAPTER IS NEWLY BETAED._

_**Epilogue:**_

_**About Misshaped Birthday Parties**_

_Every human being on this earth is born with a tragedy, and it isn't original sin. He's born with the tragedy that he has to grow up...a lot of people don't have the courage to do it. (Helen Hayes)_

Living with the Marauders for a long time made you resilient to shock, surprise or incredulity. They spent half of their life in detention. Sometimes for the silliest of reasons, they had a place booked in the secret shrine to wizarding troublemakers. They were not deterred by normal human boundaries, and had a more than healthy sense of humour and a serious lack of shame.

Nobody then, was truly surprised about what happened after James' eighteenth birthday, the 27th March 1978.

James and Sirius persuaded the other two remaining marauders that it would be a smashing great idea to get sloshed. So then, Mr. Prongs and Mr. Padfoot, sneaked out of Hogwarts through the secret corridor behind the mirror of the fourth floor. They went to the Hog's Head and managed to sneak massive amounts of firewhisky into the Gryffindor common room and the seventh year boys' dorm room.

It was a fun evening. It started just after curfew, and went on until the wee hours of the morning. When Fabian Prewett walked into them and was cheerily offered to join them, he was more than glad to oblige. They laughed; they had a fair amount of fun… one of the few things they would later remember would be a late hand of strip-poker; and a very blurry and stupid-like game of truth-or-dare.

All of them were so drunk, they were clearly not themselves.

The next morning Remus' alarm clock went off at seven thirty am, as per usual. But that day it sounded more like a boat siren was announcing the Titanic's departure in the middle of their dorm room.

Remus reached out to turn it off and obliterate any more of the ear-splitting noise. With great difficulty he managed to shove his clock off the nightstand, and it crashed against the floor with a loud _bang!_, being effectively silenced.

Remus let out a sigh of unspeakable relief.

He felt as if his head was about to burst wide open. An insistent throb at his temples made pretty obvious that he had one hell of a hangover. He ached everywhere, as if he had been smashed into a brick wall several times.

Moving his arm had been an act of supreme willpower. It was just as after every damn full moon. But no, it wasn't quite the same. After the full moons he felt the stinging sensation of cuts all around. Now, he just felt like he wouldn't be able to move for the rest of eternity. His muscles had a burning sensation to them when he wriggled around.

He was still with his eyes closed. He tried to open his eyes then. But he had to close them immediately as the dawn's soft light filtering through his bed curtains felt rather like someone was stabbing a razor-sharp knife into his eye sockets. His headache was only worsening.

He mentally tried to remember which day of the week was. Monday… if he wasn't mistaken. That would mean that they had Transfiguration first thing. He managed to make this whole reasoning with reasonable speed considering the muddled state of his brain. He had the distinct impression that his ideas where absolutely mixed-up.

_Transfiguration_! He startled. And as his whole body went into spasm he awkwardly tried to get out of bed. _Classes_! _Late again_. His efforts of getting up were hindered by the fact that his clumsy lower extremities became all tangled in his sheets and he fell into an ungraceful heap of arms and legs onto the floor.

There sprawled into the floor he kept staring up at the ceiling while seeing hundreds of colourful shining points. He turned his head until his burning right temple was against the cool stone floor.

Suddenly he heard a loud click and the bathroom door opened spilling a thread of light into the bedroom. A pair of new black polished uniform shoes was directly in front of his eyes now.

"Good morning Moony!" it was an obnoxiously cheerful voice. Everything was so _loud_. "My, my do you think this is a way to greet such a nice day. I would've thought better of you."

Sirius was hovering over him looking amusedly at his hung-over friend. He had his arms crossed, trying to decide if it was safe to keep making fun of Moony, or if on the contrary, should he be helping him up. Apparently he decided for the latter, for he crouched down to help Remus back up the bed.

"God, you're really bad off mate." said as he carried the dead weight of his friend almost all by himself. "You can't go down like that."

Moony, though very bad off, tried to rise again… and felt the compulsive need to empty his stomach. And so he upchucked his dinner and a considerable amount of bile directly onto the floor and onto Sirius' shoes. His friend didn't look much bothered, and pushed his friend's hair gently out of his face while he retched. Then with a quick spell and a flick of his wand he cleaned the whole mess off the both of them and the stone floor.

He tried to convince Remus to stay in bed that morning, to no avail. Remus insisted that he had to go to class. No matter what. And if Sirius wasn't going to help he'd better get out so he could do it by himself. Sirius just shook his head and moved over to the other beds to check.

"Those three are still out cold." he pronounced moments later in a hushed voice Remus felt immensely grateful for.

During the breakfast the only thing Remus did was poke around with his eggs while trying to shut off Sirius' prattling and worried questions. _If he could just shut up… _He kept spacing off, his ability to properly focus being lost by moments.

When Professor MacGonagall received the seventh years in her class that morning was not surprised to find part of the Troublesome Four late to class. After all, Potter and Pettigrew had the bad habit of arriving late to whatever first class they had on Mondays. They had been doing so for seven years and there was no reason to think they would be reforming soon. What she did find surprising was that their other dorm mate was also late. And, that from the two sitting in class, one was clearly out of sorts.

She eyed Black and Lupin closely. Black seemed perfectly normal. He was as per usual half reclined and staring at the ceiling. He hadn't bothered taking out quill and ink; and had the look of one who is going to hear a story before going to bed he's heard a thousand times. He didn't look enthused by the idea. In fact he looked supremely bored.

He kept eyeing Lupin every so often, who admittedly, looked quite bad. He was pale, paler than usual, and he observed the back of the girl in front of him with half-lidded eyes. He had about him a look of supreme tiredness.

_Maybe it the full moon is nearing…_

She went on with her lesson, scribbling the complicate parts of the human-animal full inside-out transformation on the blackboard. She could see Black nudging Lupin awake once or twice. The boy had opted for holding his head steady in his right hand while writing… and she would've sworn that he was about to fall asleep. The complex diagrams soon filled half of the wall-long board.

Suddenly a loud _thud_ resounded across the classroom. She interrupted her speech and turned around, her eyes searching automatically the lasts rows of benches at the back of the classroom. The other students had turned to see what was happening too.

She could see Lupin's fallen head over the desk, and Black's mildly worried attempts to wake him up by shaking his shoulder. He then proceeded to curl his friend's fingers into a fist and try to make stand Lupin's forehead over it, as if thinking.

She sighed… she understood that he wanted to save his friend the embarrassment, but this was beginning to be absolutely ridiculous!

Then his eyes caught a glimpse of her pursed lips and promptly stopped doing what he was doing; resulting in another _thud_, which made him wince as he straightened himself out.

"Mr. Black what exactly are you doing if I may ask?" she snapped annoyed.

He eyed back at his sleeping friend, and after checking that he was in fact still sleeping, he answered:

"Getting Remus into a more comfortable position. If he keeps sleeping like that he's going to get a crick in his neck."

She reeled at his nonchalant attitude. This was highly suspicious in the worst way possible. Because Black was acting just as he might had he just made a toilet explode.

"And would you mind telling me which is the reason why three of your roommates aren't here right now?"

"They found themselves absolutely unable to wake up, Professor. Meaning that it was absolutely impossible for me to wake them up, Madam." He says it as if he is a cadet informing an auror of the movements of Death Eater supporters. Definitely not as a student who is explaining his friend's absenteeism.

She doesn't want to know. She doesn't feel like giving out another detention. Even if she doesn't thinks it will hinder the boys in their upcoming NEWTs.

Her gut tells her that the one she should be burying Sirius Black under a mountain of detentions, but he is wide awake and in her class; so he hasn't done anything until proved wrong.

There are only three months left of school. They will fly away in nothing… she knows from experience. She secretly is counting the days left to get the most troublesome quartet ever seen out of her hair.

So far she has only had to hand them four detentions this year… a very pleasant surprise. But she should've known it couldn't last. Not even with Potter as the Head Boy. What have they done now, she's in no hurry to discover. Although it sounds like a late night party.

"Forty points less for Gryffindor. Bring Mr. Lupin to the infirmary; he does look a bit pale. And take the others there too."

Without protest, Black slings his bag over one shoulder, hangs Lupin's over the other and takes the rest of the heavy books in his arms. Then he levitates his friend out of the room while whispers and sniggers can still be heard between the other students.

At dinner time, the four wayward seven year students were already out of the hospital wing, more or less safe from their own alcohol poisoning. They were still more than a bit hangover because Madame Pomfrey refused to give them a hangover potion once they woke up. She did give them a head-ache soothing beverage, but nothing that could make their malfunctioning brain snap out of it and stop protesting about the smallest of sounds.

They were seated at the far end of the Gryffindor table… to avoid human interaction as much as possible considering how big Hogwarts was. Fabian had joined the so-called Marauders that evening because he was in no mood to socialise. And he'd rather stay with people who could sympathise with his predicament.

Lily Evans and her friends, mainly Mary MacDonald and Alice Dowell, arrived relatively late. They made their way towards their little group.

She'd been dying all day just to ask what the hell happened to those four. Not even when she tried to subtly inquire, corner, or downright interrogate Sirius, has been able to come with any coherent answer. He answered her questions with some of his own. He even went as far as proclaiming her nosy.

She looked at them feeling slightly suspicious. Truth is, Sirius was perfectly fine but the other four looked horrible. And that was strange because with those four, they all do everything together. Sometimes Lupin stood on the sidelines. But she'd bet her monthly assignation that Sirius would NEVER be the one to stay behind. It was all very odd.

She sat in front of Sirius, beside James, watching the five boys with her undivided attention. They were toying with their food, pushing it around the plate, well James was. Peter was contemplating a rhubarb cake with an incredibly sad face. Fabian had his face burrowed between his crossed arms, and she had the feeling than he just wanted to evaporate. Remus looked like he was going to puke if he even had another look at the food. Sirius was, quite contrarily, leisurely eating a liver meat-cake, slightly humming to himself and had an amused, knowing look etched on his face.

She promptly asked them, as in a general whole, what on earth was wrong. There was a collectively wince. Remus promptly brought a hand to his forehead, James covered his ears and Peter looked so startled that he was about to fall off the bench. Luckily James' quick reflexes were slowly coming back and he rescued him on time.

"Shhh…" Remus made. He was looking at her with pleading eyes. "Don't shout."

She was met with rather enthusiastic, if not all too lively, nods form the rest. She immediately and instinctively turned to Sirius for an answer. A real answer. But he wasn't paying her any attention. In fact he was eyeing interestedly a scroll of parchment she'd rather ignore the contents of.

She stared at his forehead for a few minutes, but she soon got tired, as he wasn't bothered a bit. She cleared her throat to get his attention. James looked at her frowning, like she'd just killed his mother's kitten. If she had to go by his face, he was about to shove her off the bench himself.

Remus, far more practical, elbowed Sirius in the ribs to make him pay attention. Sirius, left whatever he was doing for later and answered rather resignedly, and laconically.

"James' birthday." Four fervent _shhhh_s quickly followed the pronouncement, and Lily was starting to get annoyed. So she asked again, waiting for a better answer:

"Could you tell me what has to do my boyfriend's birthday with their current horrible state?" she snaps rather tartly.

"Poor, little innocent thing! Well, you see… we felt like celebrating…"

"…and we drank." Lupin supplied helpfully. She stares dumbfounded at Lupin. Then she stared at Sirius for a few moments. Then her frown deepened and points he finger at Sirius.

"So you're telling me that this four got themselves drunk just because it was James' birthday, knowingly that the next day they had to go to class." said Lily eyeing James carefully.

Potter sent her a half-hearted smile trying, although not managing, to forget his head ache, as an apology. "Yes that's exactly what I'm saying" answered Sirius mildly. Her displease is fairly obvious for all to see.

"Oh, very nice… have you four ever heard of moderation? Ever? You were drinking alcohol, not pumpkin juice!" She was not yelling but her anger is resonating in her voice, a little louder than they could abide. "For God's sake, if one of you can have a little control, so can all of you!"

"It's not that…" protested Peter feebly.

"And _why_ is that _you're_ the only one _sober_?" said Lily rather annoyed and rising her voice every two words, irate face staring straight into Sirius. "Couldn't you have stopped them, instead of letting them make fools of themselves?"

The four jumped at her high pitched tone. It is Moony's turn to try and talk again, to try soothing the growling lioness that was menacing with biting their heads off.

"Well, you see Lily, the case is that…" he talked almost nonexistent whisper. Lily's annoyance didn't abate but she did listen to him. She was more inclined to believe whatever he told her. She had him for a responsible person after all. Even if she should start revising that misconception.

"Sirius did drink… as much as us… hell, maybe even more." he squinted his eyes at Siruis, and snorted. "Only that the arsehole has a fucking iron gullet."

He shot a deathly glare at Sirius. Sirius only smirked back. He grumbled something about the son of a bitch being up and about at seven in the morning, but she couldn't really understand what he's going on about.

"Son of a bitch's got the highest alcohol tolerance ever…" grumbled James at her right. At this Lily smiled and put her nicest face and mildest voice. She addressed to the four boys:

"Well, at least I hope this little misshaped adventure of yours taught you something…" James raises his head form his plate.

"Yes, do never try to drink as much as Padfoot…"

He never got to end the sentence because Lily smacked James on the head. But the half-hearted grumblings were not over.

"Trying to out-drink Pads is really a bad idea guys…" murmurs Peter.

"I swear I'll never get a taste of firewhisky again in my life…" Fabian solemnly promised himself among incredulous stares.

"Damn man… he drinks like a fish and is fresh as a fucking rose…" Lily shook her head exasperatedly. And eyed Sirius inquiringly.

"It's all a matter of time and habit." He pronounced like one who knows what he's saying. "Been drinking alcohol as far as my memory goes."

"You're a fucking alcoholic mate…" said James grumpily.

"It doesn't mean that I _have_ to drink all that much to feel good James, It only means that I _can_." He looked at James wryly.

James gave him the finger. But his bad reflexes at the moment caused him to be too slow, so his digit got caught in a rather painful grip from his best mate across him; until he swatted his hand away. Sirius then shot a look at the rest of the boys' pained countenance and smirking at them, he said:

"Anyone want a drink?" he was loud, loud enough for others to hear. The other boys shuddered and eyed him with them written all over their face, even when it was plain for all to see that he was holding a pumpkin juice jug in his right hand.

"Damm you… Black…"

"I just hope this is over by tomorrow…"


End file.
